Juvenilia is a term applied to literary, musical or artistic works produced by an author during his or her youth. The term often has a retrospective sense. For example, written juvenilia, if published at all, usually appear some time after the author has become well known for later works.
The term was first recorded in 1622 in George Wither's poetry collection Ivvenilia. Later, other notable poets, such as John Dryden and Alfred Lord Tennyson, came to use the term for collections of their early poetry. Jane Austen's earlier literary works are also titled Juvenilia.
One exception to retrospective publication is Leigh Hunt's collection Juvenilia, first published when he was still in his teens. Another notable exception is Lord Byron's publication of Fugitive Pieces when the author was only 17 years old, and his subsequent publication of Hours of Idleness at the age of 18. While somewhat stylistically immature (as must be expected), the latter contains, among others, an excellent and dramatic extended translation of a portion of Virgil's Aeneid, titled The Episode of Nisus and Euryalus, in which the stylistic precursors of his mature poetry may be easily discerned, as well as the long poem Oscar of Alva, Lachin y Gair, and "The Prayer of Nature", in which Byron explores many of the themes that would so powerfully shape his later works.