Lady Susan

Written by Jane Austen

Narrated by Susan McCarthy, Laurellee Westaway, Bobbie Frohman and 2 more

Written in the then fashionable style form of letters between the characters in the book, Jane Austen tells the story of the beautiful widow Lady Susan. Lady Susan has an eye toward re-marrying well, and marrying off her teenage daughter. To achieve her objectives, she spins a tale of Victorian humor and manipulation. In the end, she outsmarts even herself.

Jane Austen’s earliest known serious work, Lady Susan is a short, epistolary novel that portrays a woman bent on the exercise of her own powerful mind and personality to the point of social self-destruction.

Lady Susan, a clever and ruthless widow, determines that her daughter is going to marry a man whom both detest. She sets her own sights on her sister-in-law’s brother, all the while keeping an old affair simmering on the back burner. But people refuse to play the roles assigned them. In the end, her daughter gets the sister-in-law’s brother, the old affair runs out of steam, and all that is left for Lady Susan is the man intended for her daughter, whom neither can abide.

Told through a series of letters between the characters, the work concludes abruptly with the comment: “this correspondence…could not, to the great detriment of the Post Office revenue, be continued any longer.”

The Letters:
Letter 01: Lady Susan Vernon to Mr. Vernon
Letter 02: Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson
Letter 03: Lady Susan Vernon to Lady de Courcy
Letter 04: Mr. de Courcy to Mrs. Vernon
Letter 05: Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson
Letter 06: Mrs. Vernon to Mr. de Courcy
Letter 07: Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson
Letter 08: Mrs. Vernon to Lady de Courcy
Letter 09: Mrs. Johnson to Lady Susan Vernon
Letter 10: Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson
Letter 11: Mrs. Vernon to Lady de Courcy
Letter 12: Sir Reginald de Courcy to His Son
Letter 13: Lady de Courcy to Mrs. Vernon
Letter 14: Mr. de Courcy to Sir Reginald
Letter 15: Mrs. Vernon to Lady de Courcy
Letter 16: Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson
Letter 17: Mrs. Vernon to Lady de Courcy
Letter 18: From the Same to the Same
Letter 19: Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson
Letter 20: Mrs. Vernon to Lady de Courcy
Letter 21: Miss Vernon to Mr. de Courcy
Letter 22: Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson
Letter 23: Mrs. Vernon to Lady de Courcy
Letter 24: From the Same to the Same
Letter 25: Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson
Letter 26: Mrs. Johnson to Lady Susan Vernon
Letter 27: Mrs. Vernon to Lady de Courcy
Letter 28: Mrs. Johnson to Lady Susan Vernon
Letter 29: Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson
Letter 30: Lady Susan Vernon to Mr. de Courcy
Letter 31: Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson
Letter 32: Mrs. Johnson to Lady Susan Vernon
Letter 33: Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson
Letter 34: Mr. de Courcy to Lady Susan Vernon
Letter 35: Lady Susan Vernon to Mr. de Courcy
Letter 36: Mr. de Courcy to Lady Susan Vernon
Letter 37: Lady Susan Vernon to Mr. de Courcy
Letter 38: Mrs. Johnson to Lady Susan Vernon
Letter 39: Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson
Letter 40: Lady de Courcy to Mrs. Vernon
Letter 41: Mrs. Vernon to Lady de Courcy
Conclusion

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alcazar Audio Works
• Release date: Jan 1, 2003
• ISBN: 9780974680613

Jane Austen

Jane Austen (1775–1817) was an English novelist whose work centred on social commentary and realism. Her works of romantic fiction are set among the landed gentry, and she is one of the most widely read writers in English literature.

Reviews for Lady Susan

[librarycin · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This story was written as letters between various characters. Lady Susan is a widow and is trying to match her daughter, Frederica, up with one man, but Frederica is in love with another. I think I made an error in judgement in choosing the audio, as classics are already ?iffy? for me (though I generally like Jane Austen) and audios are already harder to hold my attention, so I think it was a bad combination, as this one definitely didn't keep my attention. I had trouble through most of it figuring out who was related to whom and how (it was only close to the end that I figured most of that out). There was an introduction that said that it was unfinished, but there was a conclusion, so I'm not too sure what that's about. (Also, wikipedia says it was an ?early complete work?.) Because I lost interest so much, at least the introduction told me the plot (although, again, near the end, I was ?getting? some of it), but I think I missed what actually happened the end (based on what wikipedia tells me, anyway!).Oh, the audio... I liked how the audio was done, initially. There are different people voicing different letters, depending who wrote them. I did (originally) like Catherine's narrator, particularly, but she got kind of whiny for me later on (though that, I believe, was when Catherine was ?imitating? Lady Susan... but it went on and on!!). It also would have been nice to have narrators with English accents. Only the man who read the intro, conclusion and title for each letter had an English accent.

[hellen0-4 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The book was ok and I liked how all characters were represented in the letters, which allows readers to see what is going on from all perspectives.

[sparkleandchico · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is obviously not comparable to Austen's better known works. I listened to it on a public domain website.

The story consists of a series of letters that are exchanged between various characters. The sophisticated, witty, elegant and recently widowed Lady Susan is on the hunt for a second husband. Dragging her unloved and neglected daughter in her wake she proceeds to visit the households of a number of relatives in order to pursue a match. Her flirtatious behaviour and carelessness with the feelings of all those in her path are the subject of much letter-gossip. To her face, the perpetrators of course remain impeccably courteous.

Austen's novels are brilliant because they accurately portray human behaviour in a way that most authors shy away from. She reveals the true hearts of her characters, in this book through letters. As always, she turns the awkward, uncomfortable but necessary pretences of society into humour. She is no doubt revealing her own amusement through her writing and comments extensively on romantic relationships and her views of them in the process...

Silly woman to expect constancy in so charming a man.

This was worth listening to but it would probably have been easier to read as it was hard at times to keep up with the characters due to the constant flow of letters. There is obviously no bad language, violence or sexual content--just a bit of polite flirting!

[sushicat-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a nice quick read. Written as a series of letters between Lady Susan, a recently widowed femme fatale, and her friend who shares her manipulative ways, and various in laws worried about the recently widowed woman's influence on her sister in law's brother. A nicely done portrait of a despicable woman.

[aulsmith · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While this should not be anyone's first Austen, it is another look at Austen's world, full of entertaining characters and the usual Regency romance problems. However, the best recommendation for reading it is that it clearly illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of the epistolary form. I found Lady Susan far more interesting than Austen's other villianesses largely because her letters gave me an insight into her own view of herself. However, Austen was at a lose of how to end the novel using letters and abandoned them, writing a summary conclusion instead.

[sloopjonb · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was recommended to me as an easy entree into the work of Jane Austen; it was written when she was only 19, I gather. I found that hard to credit as I read it; an epistolary novel, the characters gradually emerge from their correspondence, and much of the sly humour springs from the difference in how the various characters interpret things, and their true opinions as opposed to the ones they give out, and how Lady Susan believes she is, and how others see her. It is catty, worldly, and rollicking good fun ... and then all of a sudden it ends, with an authorial Conclusion, as if the young Jane had got fed up of it, and finished it off in a hurry, and you realise that yes, she was only 19 after all.

It did its job, though: I am now much tempted to investigate her mature work, which I never was before. I should have given it four stars, but for the hasty wrap-up (I wanted to see something of Frederica's true character).

[missizicks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

For such a short novel, Austen packed a lot in. I enjoyed the epistolary style, the to-ing and fro-ing of gossip and scheming, the outrage at other people's behaviour. I found the lack of descriptions of houses, balls, soldiers and country mansions refreshing, and appreciated the definition of the characters through other people's perceptions of them rather than a straight narrative description. Perhaps because the titular character is in her mid 30s, the book seemed more mature than the other Austen books I've read. Lady Susan is a horror but she's also very winning. I think I would have enjoyed her company. She's like my other favourite Austen characters, Lizzie Bennett and Emma Woodhouse - feisty and impetuous, but with the added naughtiness of being a marriage wrecker and arch manipulator. I should disparage her, but she's too much fun!

[jnwelch_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I got a kick out of the snarky little novel Lady Susan by Jane Austen. It manages to turn traditional romantic themes upside down. I'm not a big fan of epistolary novels, but here the letters back and forth effectively convey the main players' different perspectives and perceptions, as widowed Lady Susan works her mercenary schemes to land her and her daughter rich husbands, while others seek to thwart her. Lady Susan is in her early 30s, and is attractive, perceptive, intelligent, and witty. She also is totally focused on #1, and can seemingly talk any fool of a man around to seeing things her way. She typically has her eye on much younger men, making her an intriguing opposite to standard older male/younger female relationships like that of Colonel Brandon and Marianne in Sense and Sensibility. Mrs. Vernon's young brother Reginald, for example, is adamantly set against Lady Susan after hearing tales of her villainy. "She (Lady Susan) does not confine herself to that sort of honest flirtation which satisfies most people, but aspires to the more delicious gratification of making a whole family miserable." However, once Lady Susan cleverly and modestly provides her side of things, he is smitten. Lady Susan is quite frank about her pulling of men's puppet strings in her letters to her friend Alicia, and concludes, ?There is exquisite pleasure in subduing an insolent spirit, in making a person pre-determined to dislike, acknowledge one's superiority." Mrs. Vernon sees through Lady Susan immediately, but despairs of making any of the mesmerized menfolk understand there is a wolf among them.It was a pleasure, as always, to read Austen in her cynical, gloves-off mode. She obviously had affection and admiration for the devilish Lady Susan.

[petra5xs · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a very clever book indeed. Quite different from the rest of Austen's oeuvre, it is not the sort of book that you can imagine a teenager might be able to write. To conceive the character of a woman of 35ish and her use of sexual attraction and seduction for a 19 year old, as Jane was when she finished this, shows remarkable powers of observation and deduction. How much harder in the more sheltered world of the 18thC than the tell-all media-driven world of now?

Unlike all Austen's other books, this is in no way a comedy of manners, this is a single-minded depiction of the manipulative and rapacious Lady Susan.

Lady Susan is a beautiful and very charming widow whose greatest delight in life is to trump it over all other women, to lure their men, their husbands and suitors, no matter what age into her sphere. As a widow she needn't stop at flirtation and promises of future, married delight and she doesn't. The book talks of a married man staying the night with her. She is a scandal wherever she invites herself, but the men cannot resist her.

She has two main aims, one is to get her milk-and-water daughter whom she has no feelings for married to as wealthy a man as possible in as short a time as can be managed. Her other aim is to marry money herself.

This plot is quite secondary to the absolutely brilliant drawing-out of her character via letters. Jane's marvellous technique of an epistolary novel each letter detailing the writer's perception and judgement of Lady Susan is among the best writing of any of her novels. The moral issues she brings out are tailored to the character of the letter writer - some admire and encourage her, some do so falsely because she brings interest to their boring country lives and some thoroughly disapprove of her and try to protect the daughter who cannot stand up to her cold and dismissively cruel mother.

But where it is let down and probably why it wasn't submitted for publication until more than 50 years after Jane Austen's death is that the ending is abrupt and quite badly-written. It is as though Jane knew that she had to punish Lady Susan for her adultery but could not quite find the right device in which to bring it to that conclusion, so the end is a summary of what happens and is very, very disappointing.

This was, like most of Austen's books, a solid 5 star read, but for the ending. So 4 stars.

[jasmyn9 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful tale told through letters between friends and family. Lady Susan is hunting for a new husband by tricking the eligible (and non-eligible) men into thinking she is the perfect woman. The ending is a bit abrupt as the letters no longer need to be written. However, the story kept me happily occupied for a night.

[nx74defiant · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In Lady Susan, Jane Austen has created a woman who is quite a piece of work.

[nordie_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Apart from an epilogue/conclusion this is written entirely in the form of letters. Lady Susan is recently widowed and in the possession of a 16 year old daughter she considers stupid and hateful. Susan is already the subject of much scandal and gossip (having nearly split up one marriage, and managed to break up another engagement through flirting), before she descends on the house of her brother in law for a stay as she believes she has no where else to go until the scandal settles.Meanwhile she tries to get a suitable marriage for herself whilst trying to get her daughter off her hands by making whatever marriage agreement will suit.Even more scandal erupts when her sister in law's brother appears and decides he is in love with her, despite the rumours.Soon however, Susan is back in Town and through various schemes married and her daughter off her hands.Interesting way of writing a short book, which I believe was one of the first Austen wrote, but never submitted for publication. The main character is entirely mercenary, never out for romantic love either for herself or her friends. She's only out for a suitable marriage and will be entirely two faced to get what she wants. Cant think of another character like her.

[cdiemert-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful, flirtatious, and recently widowed, Lady Susan Vernon seeks an advantageous second marriage for herself, while attempting to push her daughter into a dismal match. A magnificently crafted novel of Regency manners and mores that will delight Austen enthusiasts with its wit and elegant expression.

[books_ofa_feather · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Jane Austen's ability to write about a character so indifferent to the feelings of those around her is quite remarkable. While making a character so cruel, she also made me utterly despise Lady Susan and she ended the book on a relatively happy note. Lady Susan was great read!

[nosajeel · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Had not read this short, epistolary novella before. Every sentence was thoroughly enjoyable Jane Austen. But it doesn't compare to any of her best novels or even to any of her worst novels. Only one character is particularly interesting, the title character of Lady Susan, who is heartless and selfish in an eerily modern manner (complete with affairs with married men and flirtations with younger men). I could imagine her daughter being interesting, but we only glimpse her indirectly and from a distance. And everyone else feels mostly like a stock Regency character.

[donna828 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Susan Vernon was a beautiful, quick-witted widow, but we soon learn through the letters exchanged by the characters in this clever little gem that she was manipulative and conniving, especially when it came to men. It was easy to laugh at the gossip and scandals that follow Lady Susan until her schemes border on cruelty toward her innocent daughter.Lady Susan was written early in Austen's career; however, it wasn't published until fifty-plus years after her death. For the most part, a fun introduction to Austen's later works.

[wealhtheowwylfing · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The tale of a manipulative, charmingly evil woman told through letters. Reading the varying accounts of her dealings is great fun.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Having read all of Austen's major novels, most more than once, I thought it was time to get acquainted with some of her shorter works. Since I was going to be in the car for a couple of hours today, I seized the opportunity to listen to the unabridged Naxos Audiobooks recording of Lady Susan while I was on the road. It was the perfect introduction to this epistolary novella. The Naxos recording uses different actors and actresses for each letter writer, so it was easy to keep track of the author of the current letter when the letters were lengthy.Austen created charming and sympathetic young women in many of her novels, but she also had a gift for creating scheming women like Mary Crawford and Lucy Steele. Lady Susan is every bit as entertaining as any of Austen's schemers.I'll read the book at some point in the future, but I'm glad I experienced it first through the Naxos audio version. Highly recommended!

[smiler69 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lady Susan is a short epistolary novel, assumed to be written around 1794, but which was only published in 1871. We quickly learn that the heroine Lady Susan, though reputedly very beautiful, is also a wicked and perverse woman. Recently widowed, though having always been a terrible flirt, she sows discord between a man and his wife when she encourages the man make advances to her. To her particular friend Mrs. Johnson she tells what must be close to her true thoughts, while with everyone else she puts on a show of virtue and motherly love, though we know she's put her daughter in a private London school for girls which has intolerable living conditions, with the sole object of wearing her down, to force her to marry a man she has chosen for her and abhors. It reminded me in some ways of that other famous epistolary novel [Les Liaisons Dangereuses], not least of all because Lady Susan could certainly have competed with the Marquise de Merteuil for undiluted hypocrisy and depravity. It's a short work, just 2.5 hours in audio format, this version being narrated by a fantastic cast of actors. Delightful.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lady Susan is the earliest of Austen's novels, and in my opinion the weakest. (Really a novella, it's only 23,021 words.) It was written in 1794 when Austen was still in her teens. I found it hard to get into at first. Unlike her other novels, this is an epistolary novel told almost entirely in 41 letters, not third-person narration. The story feels thin compared to her other works as a result, although about halfway through we got more of a sense of scenes, with actual dialogue.It's not that I don't find it worth reading. This novel is very different in tone than Austen's other novels--her titular heroine is a villain--a catty and malicious adulteress trying to force her daughter Frederica into a marriage of convenience. But if I weren't an Austen fan, I doubt I'd have persisted in reading it far enough for the fascination of Lady Susan's machinations to take hold, although take hold they did. The ending nevertheless feels abrupt to me.I understand Phyllis Ann Karr did a third person narrative adaptation of the story. Particularly since she's an author I've liked, I'd love to read that. Sadly it's long out of print.

[elizajane_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Received a copy as part of this month's Bookclub selection. The publisher has given us two light-hearted books with purple covers for Spring time reading. I read most of Austen as a teenager but am not a fan of her now. I basically find her bantering between the sexes and stories of women looking for a man to be "fluff". This story was no different in my mind. I was delighted to see this short novella written in the epistolary fashion though, as that is one of my favourite forms to read and the letters helped speed along the read while also causing Austen's usual bantering between sexes to be told in a one-sided narrative that helped me to not become vexed with the characters so. I did not like any of the characters in the book, but only felt sorry for the neglected and emotionally abused daughter Frederica. An OK story from an author I do not appreciate, as the masses do.

[jasonlf · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Had not read this short, epistolary novella before. Every sentence was thoroughly enjoyable Jane Austen. But it doesn't compare to any of her best novels or even to any of her worst novels. Only one character is particularly interesting, the title character of Lady Susan, who is heartless and selfish in an eerily modern manner (complete with affairs with married men and flirtations with younger men). I could imagine her daughter being interesting, but we only glimpse her indirectly and from a distance. And everyone else feels mostly like a stock Regency character.

[sweetiegherkin · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What's not to enjoy about Jane Austen? In this short epistolary novel, Jane's wit shines as ever in her ironic views of the world and her vivid characterizations. A must for any Austen fan.

[cmbohn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If you think Jane Austen was all about the good girls who got their man, this little book would set you straight. Lady Susan is not a good girl. She is a manipulative, lying hypocrite. She is still quite good at getting her man, or someone else's man, or just about anything else she wants.The story is told in letters back and forth, some by Lady Susan, some to her, and all of them about her. Lady Susan has made London a little hot for herself, so she has invited herself to stay in the country with her late husband's wife and family. This might have been awkward for some people. After all, she did try to persuade her brother-in-law not to marry. But she sails right in and makes herself at home. In no time, she is bewitching her hostess's brother and making plans for her daughter's marriage.I really enjoyed this one. It was very short, but it was a fun book that I couldn't put down until I got to the end. I was hoping Lady Susan would get what was coming to her, but I won't tell you what happens.

[wanderlustlover_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was fun and it reminds me that at times we try to box Jane Austen in too much. This book is so much about poking fun at the system. About turning things on their side and seeing if it changes how we view them. I found this a fast, and surprisingly funny, read.

[petroglyph_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not Austen?s usual fare, this short, posthumously published novella features Lady Susan Vernon, a narcissist attempting to rule her social circle through deceit, manipulation and emotional blackmail. As her fortunes change and people grow wise to her character, her goals shift back and forth between making her puppets dance for her, marrying herself off favourably, preventing her daughter from marrying favourably, and spitefully marrying off her daughter unfavourably. All that matters to Lady Susan are her self-importance and swift and excessive punishment for any resistance. I understand why this was never published during Austen?s lifetime: it is clearly unfinished. The ending is undoubtedly rushed, breaking with the epistolary form of the rest of the novel, and the whole thing is more straightforward than her other works. Still, even minor Austen is fun to read. What I especially liked was the spot-on description of the narcissist at the centre: acutely observed and very accurate.

[bookworm12_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This small epistolary novel is a bit different from Austen?s other work. The title character, Lady Susan, is a manipulative selfish woman who is hard to like. She has almost no regard for her daughter Frederica and is doing her best to marry her off to the first man who comes along. Lady Susan is used to always getting her way. She uses people to further herself and then when she is finished with them she moves on. The story revolves around her efforts to seduce and marry a young wealthy man. Through the observations and letters of those she comes in contact with we learn that everyone is concerned she might succeed. They warn the man in question, but he?s blinded by infatuation. We don?t have long enough to become attached to any of the characters, but it?s still interesting to see how it unfolds. I thought the ending was wonderfully just and was happy with the book overall. BOTTOM LINE: If you?re an Austen devotee it?s a must. Though the story isn?t as good, it?s fun to see Austen try a different style and exercise her writing skills. For anyone new to Austen I would say skip this one and start with one of her well-known novels. ?Where there is a disposition to dislike, a motive will never be wanting.??

[lkernagh · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another ebook download from Project Gutenberg with my favorite cover depicted above. This was a great read and way better than Pride and Prejudice! I know, I seem to be bucking the Jane Austen trend here on LT, but I found the concise manner of a story written in a series of letters between some of the characters in the story to be a strong writing style for Austen, and one that I prefer. Okay, so the ending is not in epistolary format, it is in the form of a conclusion of the author, but she does admit to why the story ends in this manner and I will agree that carrying the epistolary format to the very end was a bit of a problem. There is some speculation that [Lady Susan] was written in 1794 but not published until 1871. This is a rather brilliant epistolary novel focused on the recently widowed Lady Susan, who schemes her way - through flirtations and leveraging connections made - as she hunts for a husband for herself and one for her 16-year-old daughter, all the while continuing to maintain a relationship with a married man. From a character examination perspective, this story provides great insight into the Vernon family - Lady Susan's relations through her dead husband - and their thoughts and feelings, as well as those of Lady Susan's intimate friend and 'accomplice in crime' as it were, Alicia Johnson, Lady Susan and her daughter Frederica. An excellent examination of a woman of the time period who will stoop to anything to get what she wants, within a narrow scope of reason and social moral virtues. This is the book where I can now appreciate why there are so many Jane Austen fans out there!

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Shock! Horror! I read another book by Jane Austen, and rather enjoyed it. I'll have to give up my reputation of being a sceptic, I think. It's not a genre I usually enjoy, but Austen's writing is easy to read and not hard to get absorbed in. Lady Susan is somewhat different than Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice -- it's an epistolary novel, so it relies on Austen's ability to create voices for her characters, really.

At first I thought I wasn't going to get along with it very well. The first few letters, it was hard to tell who was writing to who, for me. I didn't think the characters and voices were all that distinct. But giving it a chance worked out. The most distinct character is, of course, Lady Susan herself -- not that she is the most likeable. In a way, she's an unreliable narrator, but even she can't really conceal what she's actually up to. The reader certainly isn't deceived by her for very long. The other characters in the novel mostly just react to her, so they aren't quite as distinct, but they're well-meaning and not unlikeable.

The abrupt end of the novel was disappointing, though. I had to wonder if Austen got tired of trying to write it through the more difficult method of letters and decided to just end it with a wave of the godly author's hand (TM). The conclusion is pretty unsatisfying because of it.

[barbora8m · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful language. I love Austen and epistolary novels. A really good one.