Lady Susan
Lady Susan,a novel by J. Austen , written probably 1793 – 4 , published 1871 , from an untitled manuscript dated 1805 : the manuscript is a fair copy, and the date of composition is discussed by B. C. Southam , Jane Austen's Literary Manuscripts ( 1964 ). It is Jane Austen's only epistolary novel , although her first version of Sense and Sensibility , called Elinor and Marianne, was also in letter form.
The story consists of letters, written chiefly between the kindly Mrs Vernon and her mother Lady de Courcy, and between Lady Susan and her London friend Mrs Johnson. The events occur mainly at Churchill, the country house of the Vernons. Lady Susan, the widow of Mr Vernon's brother, is beautiful, selfish, and unscrupulous. She has had to leave the house of the Mainwarings, where both Mr Mainwaring and his sister's suitor Sir James Martin have fallen in love with her. At Churchill she meets Reginald...
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