Three by Austen

I'm way, way behind in posting Decades Challenge reviews, though only slightly behind in reading - for a while I was only in the mood for essays, and then I got sidetracked re-reading McCall Smith's von Igelfeld stories (highly recommended). Even with that, I've got plenty of other reviews to catch up on, so I better get started.

The first piece I chose for the Decades Challenge was Austen's Lady Susan, written around 1795, though not published until 1871 (by her nephew, with his memoirs of Austen and several other unpublished pieces). Also published in the same volume are two unfinished works, The Watsons (c. 1804), and Sanditon (c. 1816). Taken together, and with Margaret Drabble's insightful introduction, the three short pieces present a ready comparison of Austen's work at the beginning, middle and end of her career.

Lady Susan. Austen apparently never sought to publish Lady Susan during her lifetime, but clearly liked the piece well enough to finish and edit it. It's an epistolary novella, with a title character who's a bad lady indeed. In fact, the character of Lady Susan is probably what most sets this piece apart from Austen's other work. In her six novels, Austen certainly depicts wicked characters, and describes evil deeds (see George Wickham, John Willoughby, Henry Crawford), but never directly portrays genuine vice; Lady Susan's character, by contrast, is represented quite blatantly in her own correspondence. So the social criticism here is sharp, not subtle, as in Austen's later works - but the effect is so distinct that it reads as a wholly different technique that Austen may consciously have abandoned, rather than an immature version of her later voice.

Had this piece been worked up into a full-length novel, I doubt it would be regarded as Austen's best - the plot is too melodramatic - but certainly it would hold its own against the others.

The Watsons. Of the three pieces, The Watsons most resembles Austen's better-known works. It is generally believed that Austen simply abandoned the work when her father died in 1805, and the condition of the prose is rudimentary, with vague outlines, in places, of action and dialog. But the country-house setting and society, as well as the voicing, pace, characterization, and even some of the plot, are reminiscent of Emma and Mansfield Park.

The story opens with Emma Watson (clearly, Austen didn't encounter a great variety of names in the society of her too-brief life) returning to her family home after being raised by a wealthier relation. She's immediately whisked away to a country ball in the company of beneficent neighbors, and falls in with the party of the local Great Family, among whom are multiple potential suitors of varying moral fiber. Utterly conventional Austen, yes, but we're talking 40 pages of first-draft. The characters show promise, and it would have been interesting to see what she'd done with them.

Sanditon was the manuscript on Austen's desk (figuratively) when she died in 1817, and its rough form is similar to that of The Watsons. It resembles Persuasion primarily in its acknowledgment of a changing world, and the mortality (gasp) even of Regency conventions. Rather than an established town around the ancient estate of a family of long standing, Sanditon is an emerging resort town of the sort the Victorians would come to love. There Austen places an ambitious mix of characters - the progressive, garrulous Parkers, oldblood Lady Denham, new money from West Indian estates, and...tourists. Clearly, Austen, for all her seclusion, narrow society, and distractions of failing health, saw the world changing. I wish she'd been around a bit longer to let us know more clearly what she thought of it all.