Lady Susan has plans for her own neglected daughter to marry him. We learn from the opening letters that not only has she seduced Mr Manwaring but also a visitor intended for the Manwarings’ daughter. Lady Susan is extremely lively and attractive and recently widowed, but she needs to leave the house of the Manwarings’ in a hurry. Not only is she sexually active with several men, but quite ruthless in her pursuit and use of them. The story is somewhat racy, featuring a woman of questionable morals, a coquette. It is an epistolary novel, told through 41 letters and a postscript in just 60 pages. It is an early work, never published in her lifetime, although she did make a fair copy as if at some point she was preparing it for publication. I needed something to clear my palate after a rather dark novel recently and so I picked up Lady Susan. And then finally I couldn’t resist the temptation of a new Jane Austen.

This second biography, despite its questionable title, is interestingly organised around objects in the author’s life.īut I had never read her ‘other works’, those novels or fragments that were not published in her lifetime: Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sanditon.

And biographies: Jane Austen, a life by Claire Tomalin and The Real Jane Austen by Paula Byrne. I have read both P&P and Persuasion several times and her other novels at least twice. She had to wait until my adult reading years. In the event I didn’t do A Level English Literature either. I wasn’t much impressed with the MGM 1940 film they watched of P&P: the young girls all seemed to giggle a lot and were dressed like shepherdesses. While everyone else was reading Pride and Prejudice for O Level I was with a group who were fast tracked, avoiding O Level English Literature, to use the time to read more.

Book lady susan