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Lady Susan

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Lady Susan

By: Jane Austen
Narrated by: Laurelle Westaway, David Thorn, Susan McCarthy
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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)
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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

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I also did not appreciate the harsh voices used and found it difficult to listen to.

Strong accents

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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

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Underrated Jane Austen gem! Entertaining and engaging, written in very accessible language, made even better by the narrator

Superb

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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!

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