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Lady Susan

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Lady Susan

By: Jane Austen
Narrated by: Laurelle Westaway, David Thorn, Susan McCarthy
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About this listen

 After Jane Austen's earliest known writings, she began a more serious work, Lady Susan, in 1793 or 1794. It is a short, epistolary novel that portrays a woman bent on the exercise of her own powerful mind and personality to the point of social self-destruction.

Lady Susan, a clever and ruthless widow, determines that her daughter is going to marry a man whom both detest. Lady Susan sets her own sights on her sister-in-law's brother, all the while keeping an old affair simmering on the back burner. But people refuse to play the roles assigned them, and in the end her daughter gets the sister-in-law's brother, the old affair runs out of steam, and all that is left for Lady Susan is the man intended for her daughter, the one neither can abide.

Jane Austen ended this work abruptly with the comment: "This correspondence...could not, to the great detriment of the Post Office revenue, be continued any longer."

(P)2005 Blackstone Audiobooks Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Fiction Law

Critic reviews

"Character is revealed, plot unfolds, suspense builds all through the device of letters exchanged amongst Lady Susan, her family, friends, and enemies." (AudioFile)
All stars
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I don't quite understand as Audible narration and readings are usually good, or even outstanding. Here we have high-pitched voices with slow reading trying to hide their American accents beyond fake Anglo-British accents. The results are a homicide on Jane Austen's epistolary novel! It would have been wiser if not British performers were not available to stick to just regular American accents instead of this awful mixture.

Pathetic reading with awful American accents.

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Doesn't really work for a period drama for me, I struggled to finish it

American accents were a bit off-putting

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Were there no actors who could do a British accent available? it's Austen! Come on.

Americans? Why?

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What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

English voices and proper pronounciation

What did you like best about this story?

only the author, I have just read this in book form - totally preferable

Would you be willing to try another one of the narrators’s performances?

Not if they are attempting English accents

You didn’t love this book--but did it have any redeeming qualities?

No, apart from the male narrator, even the actors had different american regional accents which really grate - some try to sound a little English, in patches, but without much success.

Any additional comments?

The pronunciation is dire Main Wairing for the anglicised Mannering. Churchill for ChurchHIll.

Oh dear, oh dear oh Dear!!!

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I liked the story, but the American accent sounded so out of place, and the overly juicy intonation was quite annoying.

American accent doesn't work with regency novels

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