XLeptodactylous

Jane Austen was a pre-consumerist writer who cared not for world-building or owning things, but instead of people's countenances, beauty and humour. She lived from the 18th to the 19th Century in England and gained little fame in her lifetime for her works, having published them originally anonymously.

I much prefer her earlier works. The Beautifull Cassandra is taken from Love and Freindship and Other Writings, both of which are examples of her juvenalia: things she wrote as a teenager and younger woman to entertain her family.

Despite the glaring spelling mistakes (I utterly adore Penguin for leaving them in) Austen was obviously a wonderful storyteller from an early age. I prefer her juvenalia because she was not so wholly concerned with love at that time. Austen has wonderful books, but they, for the most part, follow the same plot and storyline and the difference in tone in these earlier pieces is wonderful.

She wrote of drunkenness, debauchery and murder. She wrote of theft, audacity and the marvel of not necessarily doing as one should in accordance to how others view you should. There is a naivety to these writings that are not found in her later works, but there is also a wider outlook on life that I think perhaps died a little within her as she grew older.