Catharine and Other Writings by Jane Austen
6/1/2007-6/9/2007–229 pages–short stories/unpublished stories
Borrowed from WCDPL
★★★★★
Well, there’s not much to say because the last page, or so, has every story with it’s own rating (which averaged a 4.6, rounded up to 5) and my thoughts from each. Worked better that way than just grouping everything at the end.
Overall, I really found most of the stuff quite humorous. There were some possible leads to good stories, but I think JA really just stuck with the simple life she herself really knew. And I love those works, too 🙂 Only Mansfield Park left…
“If a book is well written, I always find it too short.”
~Catharine (p192)
- Frederic & Elfrida ★★★★★ very humorous…Austen used some uncommon (for her) Germanic nam
- Jack & Alice ★★★★ famiy of alcoholics (think she stayed away from this subject in all major works)…who was Jack?
- Edgar & Emma ★★★★★ wish she’d expanded this one, could’ve been interesting
- Henry & Eliza ★★★★★ 🙂 fun twists and turns…think she kept with mostly in landed gentry, esp. as lifestyle unlike Eliza
- Adventures of Mr. Harley–too short for rating
- Sir William Montague ★★★★★ 🙂 the guy loves every woman he meets…sort of like Casanova=ladies’ man
- Memoirs of Mr. Clifford ★★★ very unfinished…not sure where it would’ve gone
- The Beautiful Cassandra ★★★★ a bit scattered
- Amelia Webster ★★★★★ very amusing…spur of the moment marriages
- The Visit ★★★★★ 🙂 love the ending full of engagements
- The Mystery– too unresolved for rating 😕
- The Three Sisters ★★★★★ 🙂 very humorous…liked it the 1st time I read it
- Detached Pieces ★★ unknown point of teaching
- Ode to Pity ★ personally not a fan of poetry…not JA’s forte
- Love and Friendship ★★★★★ funny twists and plots…most of her unadopted plots I notice have lots of twists in them
- Lesley Castle ★★★★★ I like the irony present from letters from two pwople concerning one another to the same recipient I like the letter style…
- History of England ★★★ much better than the first time I read it a year ago…on my count, not JA’s
- Collection of Letters ★★★★★ all pretty amusing in their own way 🙂
- The Female Philosopher ★★ didn’t really see the point
- The First Act of a Comedy ★★★★★ that could’ve been something, what, with two girls destined for one man 🙂
- Letter from a Young Lady ★★★★★ 🙂 hilarious ending: “I am now going to murder my sister.”
- Tour Through Wales ★★★★ JA’s letters are always amusing
- A Tale ★★★ very unfinished
- Evelyn ★★★★ again, humorous because of the ridiculousness of the whole concept 🙂 Evelyn is like that city in Big Fish where everyone’s always happy
- Catharine ★★★★ OK…flirty girl with egotistical boy