Hello, dear readers! Welcome to the latest installment of the Austen 250 Reader series. Today, we’ll be diving into Jane Austen’s Lady Susan, an epistolary novella likely composed when Jane was only nineteen years old. It was first published posthumously in 1871 by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh in his now-famous Memoir of Jane Austen. Fun fact: Austen’s original manuscript for Lady Susan, which is almost entirely free of corrections or revisions, is the only surviving complete draft of any of her novels. According to the Morgan Library & Museum of New York:
"[T]he manuscripts of Austen's novels were probably destroyed after serving as printer's copy, and neither she nor her family retained any of the earlier, rough drafts of the four novels published during her lifetime or the two novels published posthumously.... There is no conclusive evidence for the date of composition, but Austen probably wrote Lady Susan in 1794–95. Two of the 158 pages of this manuscript are watermarked 1805, suggesting that she transcribed her earlier draft (which does not survive) between 1805 and 1809, perhaps for possible publication. Austen appears to have left the novel untitled."
Lady Susan original manuscript, pgs. 1-2
Even better—the Morgan Library & Museum has scanned every page of the manuscript and uploaded it to their website, allowing the public to view the entire novella in Jane’s original hand!
This series of 41 letters exchanged between various characters recount the scandalous life and times of the recently widowed Lady Susan Vernon, “the most accomplished coquette in England.” The novella begins with a letter from the beautiful, flirtatious Lady Susan, who is in her mid-thirties, to her brother Charles, announcing her plans to visit him at Churchill, their country estate. Charles’s wife Catherine anticipates her arrival with unease, knowing of her sister-in-law’s penchant for seducing both single and married men, as well as Susan’s previous attempts to prevent Catherine’s marriage to Charles.
Despite Catherine’s warnings, her considerably younger brother Reginald becomes enamored with the alluring, exotic Lady Susan, who encourages his affections for her own amusement. Susan’s sixteen-year-old daughter Frederica—demure, sensitive, and sweet, in contrast to her mother—soon joins their party at Churchill, having run away from school following her mother’s attempt to marry her off to a wealthy young man she dislikes. At Churchill, Frederica is well-received by Mr. and Mrs. Vernon and begins to develop feelings for Reginald, who is blinded by his own infatuation with Lady Susan.
When Sir James Martin, Frederica’s scorned suitor, appears at Churchill uninvited, Frederica must appeal to Reginald for support after Susan forbids her from consulting the Catherine and Charles. The situation causes a minor rift in Reginald and Susan’s relationship, but Susan later convinces him that her daughter misunderstands her intentions, and that she has only Frederica’s best interest at heart.
However, Lady Susan soon grows bored with life at Churchill and decides to relocate to London (leaving her daughter in the care of Charles and Catherine), breaking things off with Reginald and returning to her former lover Mr. Mainwaring, who is a married man. Reginald, still intent on marrying Lady Susan, pursues her all the way London—and is heartbroken to learn of her true character upon an encounter with Mrs. Mainwaring at the home of Susan’s friend Alicia Johnson.
Austen’s Conclusion, the only part of the novella appearing in prose, reveals—in a shocking twist of fate—that Lady Susan has decided to marry Sir James herself, leaving Frederica to live with Charles and Catherine at Churchill, where Reginald is eventually “talked, flattered, and finessed into an affection for her.” Lady Susan ends with a delightful passage featuring Austen’s personal commentary, a rare occurrence in Austenian prose:
"Whether Lady Susan was or was not happy in her second choice, I do not see how it can ever be ascertained; for who would take her assurance of it on either side of the question? The world must judge from probabilities; she had nothing against her but her husband, and her conscience. Sir James may seem to have drawn a harder lot than mere folly merited; I leave him, therefore, to all the pity that anybody can give him. For myself, I confess that I can pity only Miss Mainwaring; who, coming to town, and putting herself to an expense in clothes which impoverished her for two years, on purpose to secure him, was defrauded of her due by a woman ten years older than herself."
The authorial “I” (that is, first-person narration delivered by a voice separate from the characters of the text) does not appear often within Austen’s fiction, but when it does, readers are certainly in for a treat!
BONUS: If you’re a fan of Lady Susan, check out Whit Stillman’s 2016 film adaptation re-titled Love & Friendship. At JASP 2023: Austen’s Teenage Writings, Stillman joined us in Chapel Hill’s Varsity Theater for a live Q&A followed by a screening of the film.
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