Jane Austens brilliant, hilarious - and often outrageous - early stories, sketches and pieces of nonsense. Jane Austens earliest writing dates from when she was just eleven years, and already shows the hallmarks of her mature work: wit, acute insight into human folly, and a preoccupation with manners, morals and money. But it is also a product of the eighteenth century in which she grew up - dark, grotesque, often surprisingly bawdy, and a far cry from the polished, sparkling novels of manners for which she became famous. Drunken heroines, babies who bite off their mothers fingers, and a letter-writer who has murdered her whole family all feature in these very funny pieces. This edition includes all of Austens juvenilia, including her History of England - written by a partial, prejudiced, and ignorant Historian - and the novella Lady Susan, in which the anti-heroine schemes and cheats her way through high society. Taken together, they offer a fascinating - and often surprising - insight into the early Austen.