This Prince after he succeeded to the throne grew quite reformed and amiable, forsaking all his dissipated Companions, & never thrashing Sir William again. Take, for example, her entries on Henry V and Henry VI: Unconstrained by the formalities of her medium, she takes to referencing Shakespeare and giving voice to her numerous opinions.

I had the sense that Austin relished writing such humorous prose as much as I enjoyed reading it. It will therefore be saving them the task of reading again what they have read before, & myself the trouble of writing what I do not perfectly recollect, by giving only a slight sketch of the principal Events which marked his reign” “It would be an affront to my Readers were I to suppose that they were not as well acquainted with the particulars of the King’s reign as I am myself. Rather than follow suit, Austen skips trivialities such as key dates and events, noting to her readers in the introduction to a section on Henry VIII, The volume is, in fact, a parody of the stuffy claims of objectivity found in 18th century grade school history textbooks, like Oliver Goldsmith’s The History of England from the Earliest Times to the Death of George II.

Above, you can see one of the book’s many illustrations drawn by Jane’s elder sister, Cassandra, depicting Edward IV, of whom Austen writes, “ This Monarch was famous only for his Beauty & his Courage, of which the Picture we have here given of him, & his undaunted Behaviour in marrying one Woman while he was engaged to another, are sufficient proofs.” In spite of its brevity - the book numbers only 36 handwritten pages - Austen’s juvenilia shows unmistakable signs of her distinct satirical voice. By the time she was fifteen, Austen had evidently gathered sufficient material to fuel her writing, and had completed a history of England, beginning with Henry IV (1367-1413), and ending with Charles I (1600-1649). Although she had taken part in some formal schooling between the ages of 7 and 10, illness and the family’s lack of means dictated that she had to rely on her father’s extensive library for an education. Although we’d mentioned some of the choicest holdings - the original writings by Mozart and da Vinci, for example - we’ve recently come across another piece of literary history that compelled us to revisit the collection: a browsable manuscript of Jane Austen’s The History of England, penned in 1791, when the author was only 15 years old.Īusten was, by and large, a homeschooled and autodidactic child. Last week, we posted about the British Library’s colossal online exhibit, which includes over 30,000 items, all freely digitized for reader perusal.

The history of england by jane austen