Love and Freindship

Before Pride and Prejudice, there was a teenager in a Hampshire parsonage writing deliriously silly stories to make her family laugh. Love and Freindship (the misspelling is hers, and she kept it) is the gem of Jane Austen's juvenilia: a short novel in letters in which two heroines faint on sofas at every crisis, applaud each other for stealing money on principle, and pursue Sensibility to its logical, ridiculous end. It is a merciless parody of the sentimental fiction of the 1780s, written by a fourteen-year-old who had already seen through all of it.

The collection pairs it with other early sketches, including her gloriously biased History of England 'by a partial, prejudiced, and ignorant Historian.' None of it is polished Austen, and that's the appeal: this is her comic instinct running wild without a plot to restrain it. Short, absurd, and laugh-out-loud funny, ideal for a listen when you want Austen's wit at its most concentrated.

At roughly 35,300 words, Love and Freindship runs about 4 hours at 1x narration speed. That figure is an estimate based on a typical narration pace. The exact length depends on the voice and the playback speed you choose.

Love and Freindship is in the public domain, so the complete text is free on Project Gutenberg and LoudReader has the entire Project Gutenberg catalog built in. To listen:

1. Download LoudReader for Mac or iPhone (free, no account).
2. Search for “Love and Freindship” in the built-in catalog and add it to your library.
3. Press play. A natural offline voice reads the book while each word highlights on screen, and your place is saved between sessions.

LoudReader reads with natural offline voices, so the whole book works on a plane or underground. It is fully on-device and private, your library never leaves your device. Listening is unlimited on the free tier.