Lady Susan

by Jane Austen

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

One of the first stories Jane Austen ever published, yet just as sharp and satirical as you’d expect from her. This epistolary novella is just as brilliant as all the other Austen you love.

This abruptly finished--some would say unfinished--novel is told as a series of letters between the various characters, followed by a brief summary of subsequent events delivered by the author. It recounts the machinations of the corrupt Lady Susan as she schemes to marry off both herself and her young daughter to the greatest financial advantage. Though not as fully developed as Austen's complete novels, it still reflects her use of well-rounded characters as well as her keen eye for the details of nineteenth-century society manners. A must-read for Jane Austen fans!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789355274151
Publisher:	Mjp Publishers
Publication date:	10/01/2023
Pages:	108
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.38(d)

About the Author

Jane Austen, the daughter of a clergyman, was born in Hampshire in 1775, and later lived in Bath and the village of Chawton. As a child and teenager, she wrote brilliantly witty stories for her family's amusement, as well as a novella, Lady Susan. Her first published novel was Sense and Sensibility, which appeared in 1811 and was soon followed by Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma. Austen died in 1817, and Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published posthumously in 1818.

Date of Birth:

December 16, 1775

Date of Death:

July 18, 1817

Place of Birth:

Village of Steventon in Hampshire, England

Place of Death:

Winchester, Hampshire, England

Education:

Taught at home by her father

Table of Contents

Letter I: Lady Susan Vernon to Mr. Vernon — 1
Letter II: Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson — 2
Letter III: Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Courcy — 5
Letter IV: Mr. De Courcy to Mrs. Vernon — 7
Letter V: Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson — 9
Letter VI: Mrs. Vernon to Mr. De Courcy — 12
Letter VII Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson — 15
Letter VIII Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Courcy — 18
Letter IX: Mrs. Johnson to Lady Susan — 21
Letter X: Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson — 22
Letter XI: Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Courcy — 25
Letter XII: Sir Reginald De Courcy to His Son — 27
Letter XIII: Lady De Courcy to Mrs. Vernon — 30
Letter XIV: Mr. De Courcy to Sir Reginald — 32
Letter XV: Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Courcy — 36
Letter XVI: Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson — 39
Letter XVII: Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Courcy — 41
Letter XVIII: From the Same to the Same — 44
Letter XIV: Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson — 46
Letter XX: Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Courcy — 49
Letter XXI: Miss Vernon to Mr. De Courcy — 54
Letter XXII: Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson — 56
Letter XXIII: Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Courcy — 60

Editorial Reviews

"I wanted them all, even those I'd already read."
—Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Observer

"Small wonders."
—Time Out London

"[F]irst-rate…astutely selected and attractively packaged…indisputably great works."
—Adam Begley, The New York Observer

"I’ve always been haunted by Bartleby, the proto-slacker. But it’s the handsomely minimalist cover of the Melville House edition that gets me here, one of many in the small publisher’s fine 'Art of the Novella' series."
—The New Yorker

"The Art of the Novella series is sort of an anti-Kindle. What these singular, distinctive titles celebrate is book-ness. They're slim enough to be portable but showy enough to be conspicuously consumed—tiny little objects that demand to be loved for the commodities they are."
—KQED (NPR San Francisco)

"Some like it short, and if you're one of them, Melville House, an independent publisher based in Brooklyn, has a line of books for you... elegant-looking paperback editions ...a good read in a small package."
—The Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher