Description
Very Good+ dust jacket, a mylar dust jacket has been added. The Fine binding is tan cloth over boards with gilt lettering on spine. Binding is tight, pages are clean. The book measures 8.5 tall x 6.5 wide.
About the book (from the dust jacket)
Since the first publication of her major works at the start of the nineteenth century, generations of readers have loved Jane Austen-for her quick wit and for her keen observations of the manners and mores of her society. Even before Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility, Jane observed the English monarchs with an already keen eye and unmistakable witin this, her History of England.
When she was just sixteen years old, Jane wrote this gleeful parody of Goldsmith’s four-volume History of England (which virtually every English schoolchild-Jane included-had to read). Her version is an irreverent look at a subject usually treated with deadly seriousness. The monarchs-from Henty IV to Charles I-are full of very human whims and weaknesses, both in Jane’s text and in her sister Cassandra’s
miniature portraits, which depict the kings and queens of England as ordinary and sometimes rather disreputable-looking individuals
Produced in association with The British Library, with an introduction from A. S. Byatt and a note on the text from Austen biographer Deirdre Le Faye, this facsimile makes the spirit of the original work available for the first time to all who love Jane Austen’s writing.
About the Authors (from the dust jacket)
JANE AUSTEN was born in 1775, the seventh of eight children. She had six brothers and one sister- Cassandra, who illustrated The History of England. She was educated at home by her minister father and began her literary career writing sketches and parodies, such as the History’, for the amusement of her family. By the time of her death in 1817, she had seen the publication of four of the novels that
would eventually establish her reputation as one of the greatest writers in the English language.
A. S. BYATT is a novelist as well as a distinguished critic and reviewer. She is the author of several novels, including the best-selling and Booker Prize-winning Possession. She has taught English and American literature at University College, London. Her most recently published critical work is Passions of the Mind, and her latest fiction is Angels and Insects.
DEIRDRE LE FAYE is the author of the acclaimed biography Jane Austen: A Family Record (The British Library and Macmillan). She is at work on a new edition of Jane Austin’s Letters.
