This lesser-known Austen novel follows the subterfuge of the recently
widowed, beautiful, and flirtatious Lady Susan who attempts to secure a good marriage
for herself at the same time that she is forcing a dismal match onto her long-suffering
daughter. Character is revealed, plot unfolds, suspense buildsall through the device
of letters exchanged amongst Lady Susan, her family, friends, and
enemies.AudioFile

After Jane Austens earliest known writings, she began a more serious work, Lady
Susan, in 1793 or 1794. It is a short, epistolary novel that portrays a woman bent on
the exercise of her own powerful mind and personality to the point of social self-destruction.

Lady Susan, a clever and ruthless widow, determines that her daughter is going to marry
a man whom both detest. Lady Susan sets her own sights on her sister-in-laws brother,
all the while keeping an old affair simmering on the back burner. But people refuse to play
the roles assigned them, and in the end her daughter gets the sister-in-laws brother, the
old affair runs out of steam, and all that is left for Lady Susan is the man intended for her
daughter, the one neither can abide.

Jane Austen ended this work abruptly with the comment: this correspondencecould
not, to the great detriment of the Post Office revenue, be continued any
longer.

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was born at Steventon, England, and later moved to Bath. She began to write early for her own and her family's amusement. Her novels, set in her own English countryside, depict the daily lives of provincial middle-class families with wry observation, a delicate irony, and a good-humored wit. She is now considered by many scholars to be the first great woman novelist.

David Thorn spent his childhood in the Channel Islands off the coast of France, was schooled in England, and then immigrated to the United States at the age of twenty-three. He is retired from international commerce and currently resides in California.