6/24/2023 0 Comments Lady susan austenDescribed by her sister-in-law Catherine Vernon as “ delicately fair” possessing “ an uncommon union of symmetry, brilliance,” these positive attributes may be the only compliments that she receives in the whole novel. The story centers around its titular character, Lady Susan Vernon, a very recent widow in her mid thirties. The manuscript would remain unpublished until 54 years after her death with its inclusion in the appendix of her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh’s biography of his aunt, A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1871. In 1805, she transcribed a fair copy of the manuscript but did not pursue publication in her lifetime. Scholars estimate that it was written between 1793-4 when the young author was in her late teens and represents her first attempts to write in the epistolary format popular with many authors of her time. It is a short piece, only 70 pages in my edition of The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen: Minor Works containing forty-one letters and a conclusion. Jane Austen’s epistolary novel Lady Susan has never received much attention in comparison to her other six major novels.
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