Lady Susan E-Book

Jane Austen.

• Herausgeber: Madeley publishing
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Lady Susan is an epistolary novella by Jane Austen, possibly written in 1794 but not published until 1871. This early complete work, which the author never submitted for publication, describes the schemes of the title character.

Lady Susan Vernon, a beautiful and charming recent widow, visits her brother-in-law and his wife, Charles and Catherine Vernon, with little advance notice at Churchill, their country residence. Catherine is far from pleased, as Lady Susan had tried to prevent her marriage to Charles and her unwanted guest has been described to her as "the most accomplished coquette in England". Among Lady Susan's conquests is the married Mr. Manwaring.

Leseprobe

Lady Susan

––––––––

by Jane Austen

Madeley publishing

Contents

Jane Austen Biography

Jane Austen Interesting Facts

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CONCLUSION

Jane Austen Biography

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in Steventon, Hampshire, England. While not widely known in her own time, Austen's comic novels of love among the landed gentry gained popularity after 1869, and her reputation skyrocketed in the 20th century. Her novels, including Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, are considered literary classics, bridging the gap between romance and realism.

The seventh child and second daughter of Cassandra and George Austen, Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in Steventon, Hampshire, England. Jane's parents were well-respected community members. Her father served as the Oxford-educated rector for a nearby Anglican parish. The family was close and the children grew up in an environment that stressed learning and creative thinking. When Jane was young, she and her siblings were encouraged to read from their father's extensive library. The children also authored and put on plays and charades.

Over the span of her life, Jane would become especially close to her father and older sister, Cassandra. Indeed, she and Cassandra would one day collaborate on a published work.

In order to acquire a more formal education, Jane and Cassandra were sent to boarding schools during Jane's pre-adolescence. During this time, Jane and her sister caught typhus, with Jane nearly succumbing to the illness. After a short period of formal education cut short by financial constraints, they returned home and lived with the family from that time forward.

Ever fascinated by the world of stories, Jane began to write in bound notebooks. In the 1790s, during her adolescence, she started to craft her own novels and wrote Love and Freindship [sic], a parody of romantic fiction organized as a series of love letters. Using that framework, she unveiled her wit and dislike of sensibility, or romantic hysteria, a distinct perspective that would eventually characterize much of her later writing. The next year she wrote The History of England..., a 34-page parody of historical writing that included illustrations drawn by Cassandra. These notebooks, encompassing the novels as well as short stories, poems and plays, are now referred to as Jane's Juvenilia.

Jane spent much of her early adulthood helping run the family home, playing piano, attending church, and socializing with neighbours.

Steventon Church, as depicted in A Memoir of Jane Austen.

Her nights and weekends often involved cotillions, and as a result, she became an accomplished dancer. On other evenings, she would choose a novel from the shelf and read it aloud to her family, occasionally one she had written herself. She continued to write, developing her style in more ambitious works such as Lady Susan, another epistolary story about a manipulative woman who uses her sexuality, intelligence and charm to have her way with others. Jane also started to write some of her future major works, the first called Elinor and Marianne, another story told as a series of letters, which would eventually be published as Sense and Sensibility. She began drafts of First Impressions, which would later be published as Pride and Prejudice, and Susan, later published as Northanger Abbey by Jane's brother, Henry, following Jane's death.

In 1801, Jane moved to Bath with her father, mother and Cassandra. Then, in 1805, her father died after a short illness. As a result, the family was thrust into financial straits; the three women moved from place to place, skipping between the homes of various family members to rented flats. It was not until 1809 that they were able to settle into a stable living situation at Jane's brother Edward's cottage in Chawton.

Now in her 30s, Jane started to anonymously publish her works. In the period spanning 1811-16, she pseudonymously published Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice (a work she referred to as her "darling child," which also received critical acclaim), Mansfield Park and Emma.

In 1816, at the age of 41, Jane started to become ill with what some say might have been Addison's disease. She made impressive efforts to continue working at a normal pace, editing older works as well as starting a new novel called The Brothers, which would be published after her death as Sanditon. Another novel, Persuasion, would also be published posthumously. At some point, Jane's condition deteriorated to such a degree that she ceased writing. She died on July 18, 1817, in Winchester, Hampshire, England.

Jane Austen Interesting Facts

Help from the family

When Austen penned First Impressions, the book that would become Pride and Prejudice, in 1797, her proud farther George took it to a London publisher named Thomas Cadell for review. Cadell rejected it unread. It's not clear if Jane was even aware that George approached Cadell on her behalf.

Much later, in 1810, her brother Henry would act as her literary agent, selling Sense and Sensibility to London publisher Thomas Egerton.

Anonymous publications

From Sense and Sensibility through Emma, Austen's published works never bore her name. Sense and Sensibility carried the byline of "A Lady," while later works like Pride and Prejudice featured credits like, "By the Author of Sense and Sensibility."

Backing out of marriage

The year after her family's move to the city of Bath in 1801, Austen received a proposal of marriage from Harris Bigg-Wither, a financially prosperous childhood friend.

A 10 year break

When her family moved to Bath and subsequently kept relocating following her father's death in 1805, Austen's writing habits were severely disrupted. Once prolific—she completed three of her novels by 1801—a lack of a routine kept her from producing work for roughly 10 years. It wasn't until she felt her home life was stable after moving into property owned by her brother, Edward, that Austen resumed her career.

Straight pins

For an unfinished novel titled The Watsons, Austen took the pins and used them to fasten revisions to the pages of areas that were in need of correction or rewrites. The practice dates back to the 17th century.

Home brewing

In Austen's time, beer was the drink of choice, and like the rest of her family, Austen could brew her own beer. Her specialty was spruce beer, which was made with molasses for a slightly sweeter taste.

Poison

Austen lived to see only four of her six novels published. She died on July 18, 1817 at the age of 41 following complaints of symptoms that medical historians have long felt pointed to Addison's disease or Hodgkin's lymphoma. In 2017, the British Library floated a different theory—that Austen was poisoned by arsenic in her drinking water due to a polluted supply or possibly accidental ingestion due to mismanaged medication.

Court decisions

Jurists often use Austen as a kind of shorthand to explain matters involving relationships or class distinctions. Half of the decisions used the opening line from Pride and Prejudice: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

I

LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MR. VERNON

Langford, Dec.

MY DEAR BROTHER,—I can no longer refuse myself the pleasure of

profiting by your kind invitation when we last parted of spending some

weeks with you at Churchhill, and, therefore, if quite convenient to you

and Mrs. Vernon to receive me at present, I shall hope within a few days to

be introduced to a sister whom I have so long desired to be acquainted

with. My kind friends here are most affectionately urgent with me to

prolong my stay, but their hospitable and cheerful dispositions lead them

too much into society for my present situation and state of mind; and I

impatiently look forward to the hour when I shall be admitted into Your

delightful retirement.

I long to be made known to your dear little children, in whose hearts I

shall be very eager to secure an interest. I shall soon have need for all

my fortitude, as I am on the point of separation from my own daughter.

The long illness of her dear father prevented my paying her that attention

which duty and affection equally dictated, and I have too much reason to

fear that the governess to whose care I consigned her was unequal to the

charge. I have therefore resolved on placing her at one of the best

private schools in town, where I shall have an opportunity of leaving her

myself in my way to you. I am determined, you see, not to be denied

admittance at Churchhill. It would indeed give me most painful sensations

to know that it were not in your power to receive me.

Your most obliged and affectionate sister,

S. VERNON.

II

LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MRS. JOHNSON

Langford.

You were mistaken, my dear Alicia, in supposing me fixed at this place

for the rest of the winter: it grieves me to say how greatly you were

mistaken, for I have seldom spent three months more agreeably than those

which have just flown away. At present, nothing goes smoothly; the females

of the family are united against me. You foretold how it would be when I

first came to Langford, and Mainwaring is so uncommonly pleasing that I was

not without apprehensions for myself. I remember saying to myself, as I

drove to the house, "I like this man, pray Heaven no harm come of it!" But

I was determined to be discreet, to bear in mind my being only four months

a widow, and to be as quiet as possible: and I have been so, my dear

creature; I have admitted no one's attentions but Mainwaring's. I have

avoided all general flirtation whatever; I have distinguished no creature

besides, of all the numbers resorting hither, except Sir James Martin, on

whom I bestowed a little notice, in order to detach him from Miss

Mainwaring; but, if the world could know my motive THERE they would honour