Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon

It was unfair of G. K. Chesterton to announce, however diffidently, that ‘I for one would have willingly left Lady Susan in the wastepaper basket. In no other novel is Jane Austen so evidently writing at a turn-ing-point in the morals of the nation. The machinations of the wicked, witty and beautiful heroine clearly identify it with the outspoken and ribald eighteenth century.

The Watsons – more accomplished because written later – is characterized by optimism and a delightful vitality, and there is still vivacity in Sanditon, though it is tempered by satire and a markedly ambiguous attitude to the new age.

Spanning the three periods of her writing, Lady Susan and the two incomplete fragments in this volume throw valuable light on Jane Austen’s major novels.