Discussing Lady Susan 

I enjoyed your discussion about Lady Susan!

Loved watching this!

BTW , you gave us such amazing comments !

Really enjoyed Lady Susan and it was not on my radar until you did this readalong. Thanks!

This discussion was so interesting! Thank you!!💐I read "Lady Susan" last year for the first time and loved it, it also felt like a play for me.

Loved your discussion. I read Lady Susan for the first time during JAJ. I was glad I had just viewed the film as it gave me a sense of who the characters were. Great story that I will reread and rewatch in the future. Thanks for spotlighting it as part of JAJ. 😎

I really looved it. My first reading and I was absolutely happy . Can't believe Jane wrote this!!! 😍😄

I read Lady Susan for the first time, thought it was very amusing. My favourite character was Catherine Vernon, I wouldn’t have enjoyed Lady Susan’s antics nearly as much if there wasn’t someone seeing through her that I could route for. Would recommend the audiobook, I loved the sarcastic voice the narrator for Catherine used whenever she was quoting Lady Susan’s dramatic appeals for her sympathy.

Wonderful discussion and interesting comments. I also re-read Lady Susan and re-watched Love & Friendship. Re: Frederica writes only 1 letter--yes! that is so interesting--except for this letter, everything we know about Frederica and her character is told to us by someone else! Re: Claudia's comment that it's like a play--yes! again--I have an audiobook of Lady Susan, and each letter-writer is read by a different actor, which makes it very much like a play, and adds to the enjoyment of the novel. And I agree with Katie about the novel and the film--they are both subtle parodies (of the epistolary novel and the costume film drama), and the film has just the right tone without going over the top. For me, however, Lady Susan is just the right length--the humor and irony and sarcasm might wear on the reader if it carried on too long.

(Melanie here) I read Lady Susan for the first time this year. Loved hearing your insights. I had seen Love & Friendship before but I will enjoy it more now.

Interesting comment about reminding you as a play. I wondered whether it was written (in part) for it to be read aloud to the rest of her family, with different voices, almost like a play. We know the family liked to read and perform to each other.

I read and really enjoyed Lady Susan in July. I absolutely agree with Claudia - Lady Susan really reminds me of a play. I would be really curious to see how Lady Susan and Manwaring would be together - he does read as a bit ridiculous but I kind of love that Lady Susan seems to have the upper hand in that relationship! I must re-watch Love and Friendship, I watched it when it first came out before I’d read the book. As I typed that Claudia said that it was for people who’d read the book - when I did watch it I didn’t love it and its probably because I was expecting another Pride and Prejudice, I’d say I’d enjoy it a lot more now.

I love Lady Susan. First time reading it and looking forward to watching Love and Friendship at some point. I love your comparisons between her and the male rakes in Austen’s other books because when she was writing to Mrs Johnson, I was immediately put in mind of Henry Crawford from Mansfield Park. She is a fascinating character - clever, manipulative and charming. She is despicable in her behaviour but you also have to admire it for a woman of the period to be so determined!

I read Lady Susan for the first time this month. It was the first Jane Austen novel that i actually liked. After having previously read Northanger Abbey and Persuasion and not at all liking her novel of manners theme, i was ready to write Jane Austen off as not being my thing. But I heard that her 90% finished novella 'Lady Susan' was different to her other writings, and so it seemed to be. There is romance here, but it is of the manipulative and scheming variety, with Lady Susan being a cunning and ruthless 18th century cougar, whose character is what made the story as interesting as it was. The epistolary form of the novella perfectly highlighted the deceptive manipulations of Lady Susan, with her sister-in-laws letters revealing how she was portraying herself to others as virtuous, yet Lady Susan's own letters to her friend, the equally ruthless Alicia Johnson, show just how heartless, cunning and evil she truly was. The only weak point of the story I found was the ending. It seemed rushed and anticlimactic, although perhaps this has something to do with it being unfinished.

I have a head cannon that Isabella Thorpe grew up to be Lady Susan who grew up to be Lady Catherine. 😂❤😂❤😂

Lady Susan is a matured Lucy Steele - adept at living at the expense of others and winning them with her charms. They are Austen's successful manipulators whereas Caroline Bingley never quite gets things to go her way. Interesting idea about Frederica taking a leaf out of her mother's book! Could be true. Lady Susan has all of Austen's normal humour from her books, juvenalia and her own letters, but doesn't have the morality and romance of the novels so the wit has more freedom.

I shouldn't have watched this since I've not read Lady Susan, but what the hell. It was fascinating watching the three of you discuss this. After all, this is July Jane Central, the Wrap-Up. So the entire story is in letter form, similar to Clarrisa, by Richardson? My son read that, and he said it was a riot.....mostly rotten people. I guess I'll have to read it, but I'm curious. How is it related (in a letter) that Lady Susan is as rotten/evil as you state? Are women declaiming against each other "on the record"? How large of a time block is covered by the letters, and are the letters dated in the story? Anyway, I guess I'll have to read it, especially since you've painted the protagonist as a clever mash-up of Mrs. Bennet and Willoughby. And Kate Beckinsale as Lady Susan in an adaptation?! She is our favorite "Emma". You should all do more of this.

Lady Susan seems like a much more villainous and narcissistic version of Lady Delacour from Belinda by Maria Edgeworth. The way the world sort of perceives Lady Delacour in Belinda is how Lady Susan actually is. Lady S. is extremely abusive towards her daughter. Gaslighting her and the world about her is the reason that the girl has started taking more and more drastic steps in her life. Eloping, writing the letter to Reginald. I also wonder a lot about Mrs. Johnson. For Lady S to have such implicit trust in her, she must either be really close to her or Lady S also knows a ton of her secrets. A full length novel would have been great. I like epistolary novels, so would have preferred the style to be maintained. Another thing i fond interesting is hoe JA's family tried to distance themselves and JA from this particular work of hers. It must have been so scandalous at the time.

Joan Crawford.

I did not like Lady Susan. I don't know why but I was bored reading it. It might be because I was reading a stack of books all at once for all the summer read-a-thon bingos.