Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon by Jane Austen
The written works unfinished by Jane Austen grab any fan into its web, unfinished or not, any fan or non-fan, will love to read these unfinished works of Lady Susan, The Watsons, & Sanditon. All written in different parts of her life that give you a glimpse of not just her imagination, but of the world around her.
Lady Susan written first is written in a different form of writing that Jane Austen experimented with, which is letter form. She had been influenced by other authors to give this form a try, but in truth I am glad she didn't stick to it. With her ability to tell a story much better in the form she took to with Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, & her many other works. The story that is told is interesting & colorful for something written by Jane Austen, but a work I was glad attempted in whatever form, though a much happier form would have been her 3rd person writing.
Lady Susan, the story of a woman seen in her time; if the world had only known was manipulative, hurtful, demeaning, & mentally cruel to her own daughter, woman. Lady Susan a widow of a very short time takes us through a ride with her letters to her friend about her daughter who refuses to marry the man that her mother believes the most advantage match for her & the truths she shares with her friend of affairs & tricks of her turning a man set against her, against his own family. Your not let alone with Lady Susan however, among her letters are the replies from her friend & the letters written from her sister-in-law to her mother about Lady Susan & the confusions she lays in front of men. In this story, though unfinished, you see how cruel one woman can be, but at the same time see what a woman was left to in the Regency society, when marriage was all she had to look forward too.
Then there is The Watsons a story that would be loved by any fan of Pride & Prejudice or Mansfield Park. Written in her common form of writing, Jane Austen sets a story not to different from the life she herself has lead to this point. Within this story you are shown something that is common within Jane Austens writings, but in this turn of events, not everything is a fairytale. She shows unlike in her other finished books, that you don't always get your man, even when your in love with him, that there is heartbreak. With a twist on that, Austen shows the treacheries that come with family life. That a better situation in life over that of family can push someone to cause loss for her own sister. This unfinished novel is a story based on, well the Watsons, but particularly on Emma Watson, a once heiress to her aunts fortune (whom she was raised by), is now left to move back to her family that she has has hardly known. Leaving Emma out of the world she once knew & put into another of less refinery, but raised within refinery Emma brings her tastes & thoughts into her old but new world & is left with a stick in the mud Lord chasing after her using his playmate of a friend to get to know her, while her own eyes are set on the lords ex-tutor. A definite story that many a Austen fans would have loved for her to finish.
Sanditon a story about a family of self made invalids, was a story written at a time at the end of Jane Austens' life when she herself was sick. Faced with sickness she wrote about it, another ideal love of mine in Austens' writings, giving us glimpses of her own life within her fiction. The story is interesting & with its story about people who wish themselves sick, but don't see it, shows you another world through the eyes of its heroine. With its similarities with her other books, this one makes me smile a little at its different point of view & shows you what not having work or something close to it, can do to a mind during that time period & within any period. With me the story of those self-made invalids is what really strikes me, you don't get the average romance that Jane Austen is known for, you are swept into a realism of that life, which I find striking. Though the writing itself is not entirely up to pare with Jane Austens' other works, it is still fascinating within its own. Sanditon, the story of the self-made invalids brings you to the town of Sanditon & its locals wants of turning it into the next Bath. With the twists of old money & people wanting to get their hands on it, to leeches for those undoctored people order for themselves, & people pretending to be one thing when their not is all told through the eyes of Charloette. The young woman brought on this adventure by timing & aid to explore the world outside her own.
I would give all three of these unfinished works to anyone that is a Jane Austen fan, who would wish to see what she was unable to finish.