Love and Friendship by austen summary?

Question: Love and Friendship by austen summary!?

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'Love and Friendship' is an hilarious send-up of the epistolatory novels of the 18th century!. it's told in the form of series of letters from the heroine, Laura, to Marianne, the daughter of her friend Isabel, relating the story of her turbulent life in her youth!.

She begins by explaining how wonderfully beautiful and accomplisehd she was in her youth, and how she was possessed of "every good quality and ever noble sentiment"!. She goes on to relate how she met a young man called Edward, who tells them how he has left his father's home because his father wanted him to marry a girl called Lady Dorothea!.

"No, never, exclaimed I!. Lady dorothea is lovely and Engaging, I prefer no woman to her, but Know, sir that I scorn to marry her in compliance with your wishes!. No! Never shall it be said that I obliged my father!."

Edward immediately propses marriage to Laura, she accepts, and they are married!. She accompanies Edward to visit his sister Augusta, who is worried that such an imprudent marriage may displease their father!. Edward's father arrives, and Edward immediately takes Laura away!. They go to visit Edward's friend and meet his wife Sophia!. Sophia and Laura immediately become close friends!. Then Edward's friend Augustus arrives, and he and Edward fall into each other's arms!.

"It was too pathetic for the feelings of sophia and myself - we fainted alternately on a sofa!."

Edward and Laura settle down to live with Augustus and Sophia, who naturally have also married in disregard of the wishes of their parents!. However, Augustus is eventually arrested for debt, and while Edward goes to visit his friend in prison, sophia and Laura decide that they must leave the house before the creditors come to repossess it!. they set out for London!. Sophia remembers that she has a relation in Scotland, so they set out to go and stay with him!. In an inn on the way, they meet an elderly gentleman who turns out to be their long-lost grandfather,!. Then two young men walk in who turn out to be his long-lost grandsons Philander and Augustus!. Overwhelmed by discovering all these new grandchildren, the old man gives them each ￡50 and hastily departs before any more long-lost grandchildren appear!. Sophia and Laura naturally faint with shock at such ingratitude, and when they come to they find the banknotes have gone, along with the two young men!.

They are kindly received by Sophia's cousin, Macdonald and his daughter Janetta, who, they are shocked to learn, is shortly to marry a young man of her father's recommendation!. "The very circumstance of his being her father's choice, was so much in his disfavour, that of itself ought to have been sufficient reason in the eyes of Janetta for rejecting him" Laura says!. She and Sophia try tpersuade janetta that she ought not to marry a man whom her father approves of!. They succesfully persaude her to elope with another young man, and Janetta runs off with him to Gretna Green!. Sophia finds some money in Macdonald's drawers, and they decide that they had better take it, as it was probably dishonestly come by!. Maconald walks in and catches them, and when he upbraids them for stealing his money, they inform him that Janetta has eloped!. He orders them to leave his house!.

They walk for about a mile and a half and then, exhausted, sit down b eside a stream to refresh themselves!. While they are sitting, there, a phaeton (a type of open carriage) is overturned on the raod behind them, and to their horror they find Edward and Augustus, both fatally injured and dying!. Sophia faints and Laura goes mad!. When they both recover, they make their way to a cottage where they are given lodgings by an old woman!.

Sophia becomes ill as a result of all the fainting she has done!. Laura has forunately avoided illness by running mad instead, which is more warming!. Before she dies, Sophia advises Laura:

"Beware of fainting fits!.!.Though at the time they may be refreshing and agreeable, yet believe me they will, in the end, prove destructive to your constitution!.!.!.Beware of swoons, dear laura!.!.!.!.!.A frenzy fit is not one quarter so pernicious; it is an exercise tot he Body and if not too violent, is, I daresay, conducive to health!. Run mad as often as you chuse, but do not faint"!. Then Sophia dies!. Laura leaves the cottage, and boards a stagecoach to Edinburgh!. She is astonished to find Sir Edward, her father-in-law, on board the coach, with his daughter Augusta, and also her friend Isabel with her mother, and her long-lost cousins Philander and Gustavus!. She tells them all about the death of Edward, Augustus and Sophia!. Laura is aggrieved that Isabel's mother evidently does not approve of her conduct!.

When they arrive in Edinburgh, Sir Edward offers Laura an allowance, which she graciously accepts, and she settles down to live in a romantic village in the Highlands of Scotland, where as she says:

"I can indulge in a melancholy solitude, my unceasing lamentations for the death of my Father, my Mother, my Husband and my Friend!."

Love and Friendship is extremely funny, and wonderfully parodies all the conventions of the popular fiction of the 18th century, elopements, long-lost relatives, dramatic deaths etc!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Not sure!. I did read the book once but maybe you could search it by the author or find it by google, search!.com, or maybe about!.com

hoped I helped!Www@QuestionHome@Com