I have "Love and Friendship and Other Early Works" which in cludes "The Three Sisters," "Lesley Castle," "A Collection of Letters" and "A History of England." published 1981.

The "Introduction' is by Geraldine Killalea.

"Jane Austen's writing reveals a critical awareness of current literary fashion and is in fact directed towards debunking the follies of contemporary novels rather than recording the contemporary social scene. Her swooning heroins do not reflect a real world littered prostrate women; rather, they reflect a world in which the styles and mores of fiction had become wholly artifical and stultifying."

Killalea also discusses "sensibility"

"By the end of the eighteenth century the actions of characters in sentimental novels obeyed the 'laws' of fiction rthar than probability, and the author's point of view was all too often determined by literary habit. The notion of 'sensibility' had degenerated from 'moral sense' to 'feeling', or perhaps more accurately, the ability to display emotions. Physiological display of emotion through trembling, tears, changing colour, hysteria, fainting or madness, that is sentimental performance, was directly related to sincerety of even personal worth and, indeed, regarded as a reflection of personal value."

"This absurd convention led to a well-established tradition of burlesque. It is to this tradition that 'Love and Friendship' belongs. It is a perfect parody. The breathlessly evolving plot defies summary. It is a gorgeous sequence of all the stock situations and stock responses of the novel of sensiblity; exotic parentage, unexpected encounters, love at first sight, impetuous marriages, revolt against authority, flights out of danger, dramatic recognition scenes. Yet, throughtout, we are made aware of the normal as well as the conventional literary reaction to such situations, and it is the contrast between the laws of fiction and the standards of probabl social behavior which exposes the essential unreality of eighteenth-century popular novels."