The epistolary form goes back a long way, and few have used it to greater advantage than Jane Austen. In this novella, written when Austen was little more than a teenager, widowed Lady Susan is intelligent, beautiful, sophisticated--and rather wicked. She needs her daughter to marry well and herself to marry even better. She charms, she flirts, and she manipulates as she schemes away in letters to gullible (and not-so-gullible) family and friends. This is both a clever tale of one woman’s charm and desperation and a social satire of aristocratic life in 18th century England. Lady Susan is one of Austen’s earliest complete works and the story shows the same wit and insight of Austen’s greater works.

posted May 18, 2009 at 1:21PM

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