Lady Susan by Jane Austen
As an Austenite, I felt I had to read Lady Susan at some point. I am one those rare people who actually enjoy the epistolary genre, but there was something about this novella that left me a bit underwhelmed. One of Austen’s minor works, Lady Susan tells the story of Lady Susan Vernon, profligate coquette and shamelessly manipulative woman about town… er… countryside. Followed by a terrible reputation, Lady Susan’s character is quickly revealed through the letters of her dead husband’s sister-in-law. A terrible mother, concerned with making her daugther as miserable as possible so that she will marry out of despair, Lady Susan has little to recommend her to good society other than her charm. And charming she is, even when she writes to her friend, Mrs. Johnson, describing her plans to dispose of her daughter and toy with several men in the process. However, it is not until the Conclusion that Austen’s wit really comes through. For a 60 page novella, this little story seemed to drag along, only redeeming itself in its brief (non-epistolary) ending.
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
Yes, I read this because I so enjoyed the miniseries. Cranford was a charming little novel, a series of vignettes describing the goings-on in the sleepy little town of Cranford. “In possession of the Amazons,” Cranford is ruled by a set of middle-aged spinsters and widows concerned with the preservation of manners and social niceties. A series of episodes narrated by Cranford enthusiast Mary Smith, the stories are sweet and funny, and completely unlike any other Victorian novel I have read–in Cranford, spinsterhood is a respectable position, there is no rush to marry; the Amazons look upon marriage as a strange and unneccesary custom, after all, what use is a man in Cranford society?
