Love and Freindship

Written in epistolary form, “Love and Freindship” - the misspelling is one of many in the story - is clearly a parody of romantic novels Austen read as a child; the novel resembles a fairy tale as much as anything else, featuring wild coincidences and turns of fortune, but Austen is determined to lampoon the conventions of romantic stories, right down to the utter failure of romantic fainting spells, which always turn out dreadfully for the female characters. In this story one can see the development of Austen’s sharp wit and disdain for romantic sensibility, so characteristic of her later novels.