Lady Susan / The Watsons / Sanditon by Jane Austen - fun and dramatic rare stories of Austen / Books Teacup and Reviews

Lady Susan / The Watsons / Sanditon together form a fun, dramatic, and revealing collection of Austen’s shorter works. Each showcases her unmatched ability to capture society’s hypocrisies.

Lady Susan / The Watsons / Sanditon

Lady Susan / The Watsons / Sanditon by Jane Austen

First Published : January 1, 1817

Genre : Classic

Pages : 211

Source : Own

Synopsis

Together, these three works – one novel unpublished in her lifetime and two unfinished fragments – reveal Jane Austen’s development as a great artist.

Lady Susan, with its wicked, beautiful, intelligent and energetic heroine, is a sparkling melodrama which takes its tone from the outspoken and robust eighteen century. Written later, and probably abandoned after her father’s death, The Watsons is a tantalizing and highly delightful story whose vitality and optimism centre on the marital prospects of the Watson sisters in a small provincial town. Sanditon, Jane Austen’s last fiction, is set in a seaside town and its themes concern the new speculative consumer society and foreshadow the great social upheavals of the Industrial Revolution.

Review

Published posthumously, Austen’s unfinished and rare works—Lady Susan / The Watsons / Sanditon—offer another elegant glimpse into her world of witty heroines and tangled social dramas.

Though Sanditon and The Watsons are incomplete, their potential shines through. Austen’s sharp characterization and vivid depiction of society remain captivating, proving once again her keen insight into manners, class, and relationships.

Sanditon, set in a seaside village on the brink of fashionable transformation, reflects a changing era when “sea air” and “sea bathing” were the new rage. Beneath this satirical look at social fads lies Austen’s classic exploration of marriage, women’s circumstances, and human folly. At only sixty pages, not much happens plot-wise, but the humor and side characters make it a pleasant read, even if the main heroine remains a mystery and also Charlotte and Sidney don’t get to meet.

The Watsons feels more promising, despite being shorter than Sanditon. Its setup- unmarried sisters navigating social hierarchies, class boundaries, and the politics of marriage -is classic Austen. In just a few pages, she introduces a full cast of interesting, layered characters, each making you curious about their fates. It’s easy to imagine this turning into another brilliant social satire had Austen completed it.

And then there’s Lady Susan, my favorite of the three, and honestly, second only to Pride and Prejudice. Told in an epistolary format, it’s deliciously dramatic and wickedly fun, with an unapologetic anti-heroine at its center.

Lady Susan Vernon, recently widowed, charms her way through society with manipulative grace. She seduces Mr. Mainwaring right under his wife’s nose, schemes to marry off her daughter Frederica to a man she doesn’t love, and still manages to enchant Reginald De Courcy, the brother of a woman who despises her. The entire story unfolds through letters, gossip, scandal, and drama… and it’s glorious.

Lady Susan is vain, selfish, and calculating, yet irresistibly fascinating. I admired her wit, confidence, and unapologetic self-preservation, even as I disliked her cruelty toward Frederica. She’s a woman who bends others to her will simply because she can, and in a time when women’s power was limited, that audacity almost feels admirable. The ending was especially satisfying for Frederica, while Susan’s outcome was perfectly fitting for her scheming nature.

Overall, Lady Susan / The Watsons / Sanditon together form a fun, dramatic, and revealing collection of Austen’s shorter works. Each showcases her unmatched ability to capture society’s hypocrisies—and Lady Susan steals the show with its deliciously scandalous heroine.