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Title: Lady Susan ; The Watsons ; Sanditon (Penguin English Library) by Jane Austen, Margaret Drabble ISBN: 0-14-043102-0 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: March, 1975 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $9.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Impressions and deceptions.
Comment: Our capacity to form first impressions is a tendency Jane Austen examines in all her fiction. Her characters sometimes are shown to form incorrect impressions. Her characters often strive to give false impressions. None of her fictional characters is so preoccupied with setting up a public image in order to gain her own ends as is the Lady Susan who gives this novella its name. Lady Susan is the archetypal coquette, the skilled deceiver. She is Thackeray's Becky Sharp, fifty years before her time.
Jane Austen plays the game of deception with us too. In this novella, which is almost entirely in epistolary form, we form the impression from reading Lady Susan's first letter, that she is a grieving widow, devoted to the care and education of her 16 year old daughter, and willing at last to accede to her brother-in-law's pressing invitation to stay with him and his family. Wrong! We too have been duped, as we soon discover.
Jane Austen first drafted several of her novels in epistolary form, that is to say, in the form of letters exchanged by her characters. This one, which may have been the earliest of all her surviving works, alone remained in this form. And great fun it is, although Lady Susan's contriving and heartlessness, especially in regard to her daughter, sometimes goes beyond the comic to the cruel.
Naxos has added to the fun that this "entertainment" can provide by issuing the novella in audio book form. Seven actors are allocated the parts of the seven letter writers. Furthermore, there is no abridgement of the text, and there are some snatches of music that serve to provide breaks between the letters and indicate the passing of time. Altogether, an ideal production.
Rating: 3
Summary: Not her best, but fulfilling
Comment: "Lady Susan" by Jane Austen is an epistolary novel comprising only letters among the characters. Lady Susan is a vile woman who is flirting her way through England after the death of her husband. She comes early in the short book to stay with her late husband's brother's family. Her sister-in-law, Catherine Vernon, shares horrified letters with her mother about Lady Susan's designs on her brother, Reginald de Courcy. She is also horrified by Lady Susan's treatment of her daughter with the late Lord Vernon, Frederica.
The novel isn't quite as rewarding as Austen's other works that I've read ("Pride and Prejudice," "Emma," "Persuasion," "Sense and Sensibility") in that the ending isn't as compelling and is a little predictable. The letter format of the book is charming, but difficult to read aloud, as we did. I found the characters more one-sided than Austen normally writes them. But I enjoyed reading it, and am looking forward to someday reading the last two, "Mansfield Park," and "Northanger Abbey."
Rating: 4
Summary: Gossip-mongering
Comment: Jane Austen loves scandal and Lady Susan is one of the best. In the first few pages we are introduced to a mother who flirts with a spoken-for man to detach him from his engagement so he'll be available to marry her daughter, all the while having her eye on a married man. Also featuring a hostile sister-in-law, a clueless brother, and an equally mischievous confidante named Alicia, the whole short novel is full of scheming, match-making, and more of Austen's usual forte, delicious gossip. 4 stars because the format of the novel, 40 letters and a conclusion, is confusing at times and makes keeping all the characters straight a challenge. Definitely rereadable, and lots of fun.
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Title: Northanger Abbey by Robert Kiely, Jane Austen ISBN: 0375759174 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 08 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: Catharine and Other Writings (Oxford World's Classics) by Jane Austen, Margaret Anne Doody, Douglas Murray ISBN: 0192835211 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: August, 1998 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Persuasion by Jane Austen, Margaret Drabble ISBN: 0451526384 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: August, 1996 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, Margaret Drabble ISBN: 0451526295 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: August, 1996 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: Emma by JANE AUSTEN ISBN: 0553212737 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 January, 1984 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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