# The Novels and Letters of Jane Austen/Volume 11

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THE NOVELS AND LETTERS OF
JANE AUSTEN
Edited by
REGINALD BRIMLEY JOHNSON
with an Introduction by
WILLIAM LYON PHELPS, Ph.D.
Complete in Twelve Volumes
STONELEIGH EDITION
Copy No. 1092
Edited by R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON with an Introduction by PROF. WILLIAM LYON PHELPS, Ph. D. Lampson Professor of English Literature, Yale University.
With Colored Illustrations by C.E. and H.M. BROCK
FRANK S. HOLBY NEW YORKPHILADELPHIA MCMVI
ILLUSTRATIONS :
| The Old Manor House Steventon Hants | Frontispiece |
| | page |
| Jane Austen, after an original family portrait | viii |
| Home in Winchester where Jane Austen died, from a photograph by Mrs. Wm. Lyon Philps, September, 1900 | 108 |
| North Aisle of Winchester Cathedral; Burial Place of Jane Austen | 196 |
PREFACE
Jane Austen left two incomplete novels, “Lady Susan” and “The Watsons.” Miss Austen did not give “Lady Susan” to the world and would have earnestly deprecated its publication. Before her death she removed from Chawton to Winchester for medical advice, leaving her papers in Chawton, so that she could hardly have had an opportunity in her last moments of destroying those papers she did not intend should see the light.
“Lady Susan” is a novelette in the form of letters. The date of its having been written is not known, but it is believed to have been a very early production. It is a mere exercise, which, when her taste had improved, was laid aside. It is complete after a fashion. The story, which it briefly and not very clearly tells, is that of a worthless, though clever and fascinating, woman who carries on two love intrigues at once, one with a married man, while in the case of the other she is eventually supplanted in her lover’s affections by her own daughter. All this time she is cruelly ill-treating her daughter and trying to force upon her a husband whom she hates. In ​the end her two intrigues clash and are wrecked in the collision. “Lady Susan” ultimately takes herself up by marrying the man she intended her daughter to marry. Her daughter marries the man her mother hoped to secure for herself. The plot is worthy of a French novel. Although the theme is to a degree repulsive, the reader feels that the writer has a moral reason in showing deceit captured in its own snare. The coldness of the narrative precludes any imputation against the extreme respectability of the author. Being merely an exercise, the characters are little better than lay figures, but are described with that minute observation, shrewd sagacity and insight that the author devotes to all of her sternly practical heroes and heroines.
“Sense and Sensibility,” like “Lady Susan,” was at first composed in the form of letters. Jane Austen was doubtless following the example of Richardson, whom she regarded with unbounded admiration. One of the defects of this method, in addition to its awkwardness for narration, is illustrated by “Lady Susan,” in which the wicked woman is made to write letters revealing her own character and designs with an openness which, under a paternal government, might get her into trouble.
* Lady Susan
* The Watsons
* Letters of Jane Austen, Part I
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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