If you think of Jane Austen and immediately envision polite tea parties, Darcy’s smoldering stares, or the quiet dignity of Anne Elliot, you are in for a massive shock. Honestly, most people have this very specific, polished image of "Aunt Jane." But before she was the queen of the Regency novel, she was a chaotic teenager with a sharp ink-stained finger and a savage sense of humor.
Love and Freindship by Jane Austen—and yes, she really did spell it "Freindship" in her manuscript—is a wild, epistolary novella written when she was just 14 years old. It is nothing like Pride and Prejudice. It’s louder. It’s meaner. It’s basically the 1790s version of a parody movie that mocks every cliché in the book.
If you’ve ever felt like the romantic tropes in movies are a bit much, you’ll find a kindred spirit in teenage Jane. She wasn't trying to write a masterpiece for the ages here; she was writing to make her family laugh until they choked on their dinner.
What Actually Happens in This Story?
The plot is a total fever dream. It follows the correspondence between Isabel and her young friend Marianne, but the meat of the story is the life of Laura. Laura is the ultimate "main character" in the worst way possible. She narrates her life story, which involves meeting a man named Edward, marrying him within two hours of meeting him, and then embarking on a journey where everyone is either fainting, dying, or being incredibly dramatic about money.
It’s a parody of the "Sentimental Novel" that was popular in the late 18th century. Think of it as the Scary Movie of the Georgian era. While authors like Samuel Richardson or Johann Wolfgang von Goethe were writing about deep, soul-crushing emotions, Austen was looking at those tropes and rolling her eyes.
She mocks the idea that "sensibility"—this extreme emotional sensitivity—is a virtue. In Love and Freindship by Jane Austen, being sensitive doesn't make you a better person. It just makes you useless. The characters are so busy fainting on the floor that they can't actually help anyone. At one point, Laura and her friend Sophia see their husbands dying in a carriage accident. Instead of helping, they take turns fainting. Sophia eventually catches a "fatal cold" because she fainted on the damp grass. It’s hilarious. It’s dark. It’s Jane Austen at her most unhinged.
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Why the Misspelling Matters
You’ll notice the title is almost always printed as Love and Freindship. That "i" before "e" mistake wasn't a typo by a modern publisher. It was Jane’s own mistake in her notebooks, which she titled Volume the Second.
There’s something incredibly human about it. We tend to put classic authors on these high pedestals, imagining them as perfect geniuses from birth. Seeing "Freindship" reminds us that she was a kid. She was a girl in a rural rectory, writing in notebooks to entertain her brothers and sisters. Scholars like Janet Todd and Linda Bree have pointed out that these "Juvenilia" (the works of her youth) show the raw DNA of her later genius. The wit is there. The irony is there. The spelling? Not quite there yet.
The Myth of the "Sweet" Jane Austen
We need to talk about the misconception that Jane Austen wrote "romance novels." She didn't. She wrote social satires that happened to end in marriages. Love and Freindship by Jane Austen proves that her primary instinct was to deconstruct society, not to swoon over it.
In this novella, she attacks the "cult of sensibility." Back then, it was fashionable to be so emotionally fragile that you couldn't function. Austen thought this was ridiculous. She portrays Laura and Sophia as selfish, narcissistic, and totally detached from reality. They steal money from their hosts and justify it because they have "noble hearts."
It’s a biting critique of the way people use "feelings" to excuse bad behavior. Sound familiar? It’s basically the 18th-century version of "main character syndrome."
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Comparing the Teenager to the Master
If you compare this to Sense and Sensibility, which she wrote later, you can see the evolution. In her mature work, she uses Elinor and Marianne Dashwood to explore the balance between logic and emotion. But in Love and Freindship, she isn't looking for balance. She’s looking for blood.
- The Humor: In her later books, the humor is subtle. It’s a raised eyebrow. In Love and Freindship, it’s a pie to the face.
- The Characters: There are no heroes here. Everyone is a caricature.
- The Ending: Don't expect a wedding at Pemberley. Expect a trail of bodies and a lot of stolen cash.
Is it Actually Worth Reading Today?
Yes. A thousand times, yes.
Most people avoid the Juvenilia because they think it’s just "practice work." But Love and Freindship by Jane Austen is genuinely funny. It’s short, too. You can blow through it in an hour. If you’ve ever been annoyed by characters in a book who make terrible decisions just to keep the plot going, this novella will feel like a long-lost friend.
It also gives you "bragging rights" in literary circles. Everyone has read Emma. Not everyone has read the story where Jane Austen mocks a man for "sensibly" dying in a way that inconveniences the protagonist.
The Real-Life Context of 1790
To really get why this was so edgy, you have to understand the world Jane was living in. The French Revolution was happening. The world was changing. Yet, the popular literature of the time was obsessed with girls crying over flowers.
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Austen’s family was surprisingly "pro-fun." Her father, George Austen, encouraged his children to write and perform plays. They weren't a stuffy, repressed family. They were loud. They debated. They laughed at bad books. Love and Freindship by Jane Austen was born in that environment. It’s the product of a girl who was given the freedom to be cynical.
Key Takeaways for the Modern Reader
If you're going to dive into the world of young Jane, keep a few things in mind. First, don't take it seriously. If a character says they are "dying of grief," they are probably just being dramatic for attention. Second, look for the social commentary. Even at 14, Austen was noticing how people used social status and "virtue" to manipulate one another.
How to approach the text:
- Read it aloud. This was meant to be performed for a room of laughing family members. The rhythm of the sentences works better when you hear the sarcasm.
- Don't worry about the plot. The plot is intentionally nonsensical. It’s a series of "And then this happened!" moments designed to poke fun at the sprawling, illogical novels of the era.
- Watch for the "Edward" trope. Austen has multiple characters named Edward, mostly because it was such a generic "hero" name. She’s mocking the lack of creativity in the publishing industry.
- Notice the money. Even as a kid, Jane knew that you can't live on love alone. The characters are constantly running out of money, which is a recurring theme in all her later, more serious work.
Final Insights on Love and Freindship
Ultimately, Love and Freindship by Jane Austen is the best antidote to the "cottagecore" version of Austen that exists on Instagram. She wasn't just a lady in a bonnet. She was a satirist with a sharp tongue who understood that humans are often ridiculous, especially when they are trying to be "romantic."
If you want to understand the real Jane Austen, you have to start with the girl who spelled "friendship" wrong and wrote about people fainting into heaps of damp hay. It’s messy. It’s brilliant. It’s 100% authentic Jane.
To truly appreciate this work, pair your reading with a look at her other early pieces, like The History of England (which she wrote "by a partial, ignorant, and prejudiced Historian"). Seeing her play with form and voice at such a young age makes her later achievements feel even more impressive. You aren't just seeing a genius in training; you're seeing a girl who refused to take the world—or its books—too seriously.
Next time someone tells you Jane Austen is "boring," just point them toward the carriage accident in Love and Freindship. That usually shuts them up. It's the perfect reminder that great literature doesn't always have to be polite. Sometimes, it just needs to be honest about how absurd we all are.
Practical Next Steps:
- Find a digital copy: Since it's in the public domain, you can read it for free on sites like Project Gutenberg.
- Look for the "Volume the Second" collections: These often include her other teenage writings, which are just as chaotic.
- Check out the 2016 film Love & Friendship: Warning—the movie is actually an adaptation of her later novella Lady Susan, not this specific story, despite the name. It’s confusing, but both are worth your time for that same biting wit.