Lady Susan cover art

Lady Susan

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Lady Susan

By: Jane Austen
Narrated by: Laurelle Westaway, David Thorn, Susan McCarthy
Try Premium Plus free

Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $11.99

Buy Now for $11.99

About this listen

After Jane Austen's earliest known writings, she began a more serious work, Lady Susan, in 1793 or 1794. It is a short, epistolary novel that portrays a woman bent on the exercise of her own powerful mind and personality to the point of social self-destruction.

Lady Susan, a clever and ruthless widow, determines that her daughter is going to marry a man whom both detest. Lady Susan sets her own sights on her sister-in-law's brother, all the while keeping an old affair simmering on the back burner. But people refuse to play the roles assigned them, and in the end her daughter gets the sister-in-law's brother, the old affair runs out of steam, and all that is left for Lady Susan is the man intended for her daughter, the one neither can abide.

Jane Austen ended this work abruptly with the comment: "This correspondence...could not, to the great detriment of the Post Office revenue, be continued any longer."

(P)2005 Blackstone Audiobooks Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic Reviews

"Character is revealed, plot unfolds, suspense builds - all through the device of letters exchanged amongst Lady Susan, her family, friends, and enemies." (AudioFile)
All stars
Most relevant  
Story is good. As one of Jane Austen's early writings she was still refining her art but still entertaining. Performance was average. The actors' accents were more American than English in general.

Average performance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I also did not appreciate the harsh voices used and found it difficult to listen to.

Strong accents

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narrator’s intro is great for setting expectations - this was an early experimental (if that’s the right word for it?) piece, that was “finished” at a much later time. It’s very different to Austen’s more well-known stories. It’s mostly a short and fun listen, but some voices aren’t quite right (American pronunciation is ok, but some had odd ways of speaking) and there was an odd glitch in chapter 5 where it skipped ahead.

Fun, but with odd glitch

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Underrated Jane Austen gem! Entertaining and engaging, written in very accessible language, made even better by the narrator

Superb

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Lady Susan is a story that I have listened to a number of time but I couldn't continue with this version. The narration just didn't suit the work, I couldn't understand why an American accents crept into the characters voices. I've heard better versions!

I just couldn't continue!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I love Jane Austen and all of her works but I could not bear the voices used in this recording. Why use American voices? Why over enunciate every word? It was so grating it felt like farce. It was so awful I couldn't even finish it. If you want to listen to Lady Susan please look for a different recording.

Utterly awful performance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I could not continue to listen to this because of the bizarre choice to have Austen’s characters voiced by people of the wrong age (too old or too young), personality (too serious or too emotive) and accent (American, or trans-Atlantic at the best, both of which are very wrong). The plot, I know, is entertaining if unsatisfying in its finish, but I could not get through it :((

Austen done wrong

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Lady Susan is meant to be deceptive, charming and in her mid to late 30s. Instead she sounds like a shrewish granny.

Reginald is meant to be in his early 20s but sounds middle aged. Lord De Courcy has an inconsistent accent.

All voice actors overdo it to the point of caricature.

Whoever produced this does not appreciate or understand the subtle sarcasm and mockery that is Jane Austen.

terrible voice casting!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
the voice performances were over the top and ridiculous to the point of being distracting.

caricature

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.