ABSTRACT
Clearly, from the title-page 'A History of England from the reign of Henry 4th to the death of Charles the first By a partial, prejudiced, and ignorant historian', the History is a very lighthearted work, but just because it reads like a piece of spontaneous fun, we can infer something from it about the young Jane's response, not to history, but to the standards prescribed in Jane Austen youth for the education of the feminine mind. This shows some signs of independent stirrings in the eighteenth century, and perhaps for that reason moralists and educationists were inclined to keep it in its place. Writers like Mr. Addison who tell you what you ought to feel, and how much, deserve mockery, for if you happen to hate Queen Elizabeth and adore Mary Queen of Scots. In 1792 she was writing stories in which burlesque mingles with more serious writing.
