The History of England

The History of England is a brief satirical chronicle by Jane Austen, written in 1791 when she was a teenager and later included among her juvenilia.

Framed as a whirlwind tour from Henry IV to Charles I, it gleefully overturns the sober tone of textbooks. The narrator declares opinions with comic certainty, turning “facts” into a playful parody of schoolroom history and exposing how bias shapes the stories we inherit.

With brisk anecdotes, witty asides, and original illustrations by Cassandra Austen, the piece showcases an early version of Austen’s sharp comic voice. Its mock-authoritative tone and exaggerated partisanship create a lively send-up of historical objectivity.

Short, spirited, and irreverent, this youthful work offers a first glimpse of themes Austen would refine—social observation, irony, and the gap between what people claim and what they truly know.

"Henry the 4th ascended the throne of England much to his own satisfaction in the year 1399, after having prevailed on his cousin and predecessor Richard the 2nd, to resign it to him, and to retire for the rest of his life to Pomfret Castle, where he happened to be murdered. It is to be supposed that Henry was married since he had certainly four sons, but it is not in my power to inform the Reader who was his wife. Be this as it may, he did not live for ever, but falling ill, his son the Prince of Wales came and took away the crown; whereupon the King made a long speech, for which I must refer the Reader to Shakespear's Plays, and the Prince made a still longer."