Jane Austen - Lady Susan

Jane Austen wrote this when she was only 18 years old. One may wonder how she knew of the cunning manners of some women, but after all, Jane was an avid reader herself.

Lady Susan is the only immoral main character in Austen's books, in return, she's extremely immoral. She is mean, egocentric, she seems to hate her daughter, and only wants the best (in terms of finance) for herself. She's absolutely willing to destroy people's lives if it puts herself in a better position. She enjoys to influence Jane Austen wrote this when she was only 18 years old. One may wonder how she knew of the cunning manners of some women, but after all, Jane was an avid reader herself.

Lady Susan is the only immoral main character in Austen's books, in return, she's extremely immoral. She is mean, egocentric, she seems to hate her daughter, and only wants the best (in terms of finance) for herself. She's absolutely willing to destroy people's lives if it puts herself in a better position. She enjoys to influence people - men especially - with her eloquence, of which she is very proud.

The book is Austen's only epistolary novel and she's done it brilliantly. The difficulty in a novel only existing of letters, is that the reader, in contrast to the writer and addressee of the letters, has no previous knowledge of the situation and relations at all. In contrast to an auctorial novel, the author has no mean of introducing characters or stations in letters. Austen solves this brilliantly - in only three letters, she introduces us the seven characters in the book. In the first letter, written by Lady Susan herself, addressing her brother-in-law, one may believe she is a likable woman, with great manners and high intellect. In the second letter, however, written to her best friend Alicia Johnson, the reader is confronted with the true nature of our heroine.

I thoroughly enjoyed this little novel - Austen's ironic style is just the best. I even liked the heroine in a way - at least she's a strong, confident woman, which is seldom for that time. Lovely!

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