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Following introductory chapters that place these works in the context of Austen's life as an author and the literature of her time, each story/play/skit is presented with explanatory notes and a detailed critical commentary. The result is an edition ideally suited to the needs both of the general reader and the student.Jane Austen probably began writing stories, plays, short sketches and comic essays in late 1786 when she was nearing her twelfth birthday. These were read aloud and perhaps performed in Austen family theatricals at Steventon.Eventually, Jane transcribed the manuscripts of her earliest works into three volumes. These loved note-books were passed to Jane's elder sister Cassandra upon her untimely death in 1817, and to other family members when Cassandra herself died in 1845.Not published until the twentieth century, they were greeted with enthusiasm both by scholars and general readers as evidence of the early flowering of Jane Austen's comic genius.This edition includes the full text of the juvenilia (every word that Austen wrote in the order that she wrote them) presented in a reader-friendly format.