The Beautifull Cassandra is a delightful story about a pleasure-loving young female who falls in love with a bonnet and braves the world. It will have a particular appeal for children in being written by one of themselves. Jane Austen, on her way to becoming a great novelist, wrote it when she was probably only twelve, some 200 years ago. Juliet McMaster now brings The Beautifull Cassandra to us as a picture book, envisaging the characters as small animals in eighteenth-century clothing, in the manner of Beatrix Potter.

As a mouse in a splendid bonnet, the beautiful Cassandra is likely to win the hearts of children who have never heard of Jane Austen, as well as of adults who have long admired her great novels, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and the rest.

Juliet McMaster, best known as a scholar and critic of Jane Austen's novels, provides an afterword that connects The Beautifull Cassandra with Jane Austen's life and other works.

Juvenile Fiction, 48 pp, 5½ x 8¼, colour illustrations
ISBN 1-55039-041-4, paper, $9.95