A Soirée with Lady Susan

This week and next I am participating in A Soirée with Lady Susan at AustenProse. The soiree divides Lady Susan up into four segments, and those partcipating are reading and blogging about it.

For the event, I splurged with some birthday funds and purchased a print copy of Lady Susan since I didn't own one already. (While Austenprose offered some options for online reading and audio versions, I am a print nerd. What can I say?) I was so sure that I'd read it before, but after starting it I am an ashamed Janeite! I have no recollection of reading LS before.

Austenprose touts LS as "Jane Austen’s delightfully wicked novella." Written in epistlatory form, LS is delightfully wicked; nothing like other Austen works or main characters and intriguing because of that fact. One can't get enough of Lady Susan. It’s hard not to like her or want to understand her. If I can feel that way about her, it is no wonder that so many of the other characters in LS feel the same way. She has this way of captivating her audience that makes her such an intriguing villainess.

Questions from letters 1-11: What is she up to? Who is she after? Can the reader believe anything they read from Lady Susan? Does she really mean what she says about her own daughter? Is she really that callous? Is she just a coquette or a woman full of more artful wiles? What kind of woman is Alicia Johnson, Lady Susan's confidante?

Stay tuned for more Lady Susan and her delightfully wicked ways.