Beautifull Cassandra

<p><b>One of Jane Austen's most charming youthful novels-in-miniature--presented in a deluxe illustrated edition that will delight all Austen fans</b> <p/>Most people think Jane Austen wrote only six novels. Fortunately for us she wrote several others though very short ones while still a young girl. <p/>Austen was only twelve or thirteen when she wrote <i>The Beautifull Cassandra</i> an irreverent and humorous little masterpiece. Weighing in at 465 occasionally misspelled words it is a complete and perfect novel-in-miniature made up of a dedication to her older sister Cassandra and twelve chapters each consisting of a sentence or two. <p/>Narrating the slightly criminal adventures of the sixteen-year-old title character <i>The Beautifull Cassandra</i> gives us Austen's most irrepressible heroine who after stealing a hat leaves her mother's shop to flounce around London eating ice cream (without paying) taking coach rides (without paying) and encountering handsome young ladies and gentlemen (without speaking)--all to return home hours later with whispered joy: This is a day well spent. <p/>This charming edition features elegant and edgy watercolor drawings by Leon Steinmetz and is edited by leading Austen scholar Claudia L. Johnson. In her illuminating afterword Johnson calls <i>The Beautifull Cassandra</i> among the most brilliant and polished of Austen's youthful writings--a precocious work written for the amusement of her family but already anticipating her mature irony sense of the absurd gift for parody and above all stylistic mastery. <p/>The result is a marvelous edition of a literary treasure that is sure to delight.</p>