The History of England by a Partial, Prejudiced and Ignorant Historian
By (Author) Jane Austen
Penguin Books Ltd
Penguin Classics
15th July 2025
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
European history
Classic fiction: general and literary
Paperback
128
Width 111mm, Height 181mm, Spine 15mm
150g
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books During his reign, Lord Cobham was burnt alive, but I forget what for. In Jane Austen's breezy and entirely biased telling of English history, Mary, Queen of Scots is a scandalously wronged victim, Elizabeth I is a wicked villain and most historical facts and dates are cheerfully disregarded. It is accompanied here by other riotous early pieces in which young women steal money, escape from prison, agree to marry two men at once, faint and repeatedly 'run mad'.
Jane Austen, the daughter of a clergyman, was born in Hampshire in 1775, and later lived in Bath and the village of Chawton. As a child and teenager, she wrote brilliantly witty stories for her family's amusement, as well as a novella, Lady Susan. Her first published novel was Sense and Sensibility, which appeared in 1811 and was soon followed by Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma. Austen died in 1817, and Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published posthumously in 1818.