Page:Austen Lady Susan Watson Letters.djvu/19

 left two incomplete novels, “Lady Susan” and “The Watsons.” Miss Austen did not give “Lady Susan” to the world and would have earnestly deprecated its publication. Before her death she removed from Chawton to Winchester for medical advice, leaving her papers in Chawton, so that she could hardly have had an opportunity in her last moments of destroying those papers she did not intend should see the light.

“Lady Susan” is a novelette in the form of letters. The date of its having been written is not known, but it is believed to have been a very early production. It is a mere exercise, which, when her taste had improved, was laid aside. It is complete after a fashion. The story, which it briefly and not very clearly tells, is that of a worthless, though clever and fascinating, woman who carries on two love intrigues at once, one with a married man, while in the case of the other she is eventually supplanted in her lover’s affections by her own daughter. All this time she is cruelly ill-treating her daughter and trying to force upon her a husband whom she hates. In