010 - Letter the Tenth

Lesley Castle is a captivating melodramatic epistolary novelette penned by the talented Jane Austen at just sixteen years of age. While the novels that would later earn her acclaim were published in her thirties, Austen was already a passionate writer by the age of twelve, often delving into the realm of epistolary narratives like Lesley Castle. This charming work is part of her early collection known as the Juvenilia, compiled into three notebooks she referred to as Volume the First, Volume the Second, and Volume the Third. Set against the backdrop of Austens contemporary society, the novelette unfolds through a series of ten letters exchanged among five women of high society in Great Britain. With a delightfully mock-serious tone, Austen humorously critiques themes of self-absorption and jealousy among her peers. Notably, she acknowledged in a prefatory note that Lesley Castle remains unfinished, featuring interconnected storylines but lacking an overarching plot or definitive conclusion. - Summary by David Purdy