u/redwooded

I'm reading a history of Ireland right now. Around the time of the Roman empire, Ireland was divided into various small kingdoms. there was one High King of all the other kings, which was mostly a ceremonial position. The city where the high king resided was generally considered (at that time) the capital of Ireland. What was its name?

Tara.

So ... by naming his plantation after the city, what was Gerald doing, psychologically? Was he making a statement? Did he feel kingly at his plantation? Or was it simply an homage to Ireland, the land of his birth?

And what did his neighbors think? The Tarletons, Calverts, and Munroes would not have cared, but the Wilkes probably caught the reference. After all, even Rhett knew that the siege of Drogheda was in "sixteen hundred and something." If he knew enough Irish history to know that, the Wilkes would definitely have known.

I'm probably overthinking this, but I wonder what others might think.

Various people in the last couple of years on Tumblr and Reddit have recommended Lady Susan, one of Jane Austen's earlier works. Scholars think she wrote it around 1794, but they're not positive. It is an epistolary novel; that is, the action is told entirely through letters from one person to another, except for the Conclusion, when the narrator suddenly drops in. Sense and Sensibility was supposedly, in its first draft, also epistolary, and maybe Pride and Prejudice was, too; they seem first-drafted at the same time. However, Austen changed them to what we know now. She never changed Lady Susan or published it in her lifetime*;* her family published it almost six decades after her death.

I tried reading it on Project Gutenberg, but I could never get past the second chapter (i.e., second letter). Finally, this last Christmas (2025), Daughter surprised me by gifting me a physical copy. That was thoughtful of her, and it did the trick. I finished it before January arrived, and I just re-read it a couple of weeks ago (April).

It's a weird format, very common in European fiction of the eighteenth century. Dangerous Liaisons (1782) is also written in an epistolary format. Of course, the format is perfect for revealing that what A says to B is a lie when one reads A's letter to C. It makes the action a little choppy, which is also kind of the point. The reader is brought up short several times.

Lady Susan Vernon is a recent widow with a daughter, Francesca. Susan is more or less a psychopath, a proficient liar and actress, and seduces, emotionally or sexually, various men. She had to leave the Manwarings because she (probably) bedded him, so she visits her husband's brother, Mr. Vernon. His wife Catherine Vernon heartily distrusts Susan - with, as we soon see, good reason. Susan inveigles Catherine's brother, Reginald, though probably only emotionally (but it's possible it was more). She is pretty abusive to her sweet and timid daughter Francesca, whom Susan wants to marry off to some Sir James guy, who even Susan acknowledges is an idiot (but she really, really doesn't care about her own daughter). Susan takes up with Manwaring again when she gets to London. Manwaring visits her every afternoon for a few hours, while Mrs. Manwaring is increasingly enraged; what conclusion can we draw except ... ? Since it was written in the 1790s one has to make those assumptions, because it's all heavily implied.

Catherine gets firmly on her niece Francesca's side, but will Susan or Catherine have more power over Francesca's fate? Will Reginald be disillusioned and escape Susan's clutches? Who marries the dimwitted Sir James?

You know how all the other Austen novels go, so I don't really need to answer. Her trademark "won't do successful marriage proposal dialogue" technique is here in full force, while free indirect speech is an omniscient-narrator technique, so it doesn't fit letters, so we don't really see it. Austen's witty and sharp observations on human nature are here, though rather indirectly, embedded in the letters. Susan's letters to her friend Alicia Johnson are the most fun to read; Catherine reads like a stick in the mud, though an entirely accurate and intelligent one, while her father's one letter seems to show him as far too easily surprised, and her brother Reginald's letters show him to be easily swayed by the latest person to talk to him.

It's pretty short, and not as developed as her later novels, two of which came from the same era, but which (as I said above) were revised and published later. Thus, it offers amusement, but not the deeply interesting complexity and dry, cutting, and hilarious commentary about the many versions of stupidity and evil among humans that we read in the main six novels.

Still, I'm very glad I finally found a way to read Lady Susan. If the scholars were correct, Austen was nineteen when she wrote it, which is impressive. It is amusing, it is a page-turner, and it is definitely a forerunner of more mature works. I recommend it.