Jane Austen's Lady Susan: a testament to the fleeting boldness of teenage writing

Turning the pages of Lady Susan, eyes widening at scandalous phrase after scandalous phrase, I almost forget it was written by Jane Austen.

For one thing, it's an epistolary novella (a short novel consisting entirely of letters) rather than her usual choice, the novel.

More strikingly though, it is so bold - evil intent isn't concealed but directly stated by characters; the anti-heroine's coquettish schemes are played out before the reader rather than subtly hinted to.

While Jane (and yes, I will call her "Jane", not "Austen", because she feels like a friend) certainly hasn't shied away from scandalous and progressive ideas in her other works, she has always seemed to do so with a subtle wit and irony - so what happened differently in Lady Susan?

I'd say that Lady Susan is bolder and without Jane's usual level of subtlety because she wrote it as a teenager.

This got me thinking about what it was like to write as a teenager (and to think as one), and how the opinions we hold in that time of life, while often rash, are beautiful because of their boldness and fleetingness.

In fact, Jane comments on this herself in some of her books - so let's get into it, shall we?

Teenagers aren't subtle - whether intentionally or not

I remember, as a teenager, being both intentionally unsubtle and unintentionally unsubtle (apologies for the tongue twister). When I think back on the people I was teenagers with, and the teenagers I know now, many appear to share this trait.

I was intentionally unsubtle in the sense that I wanted to be heard and didn't see the value in bringing up my opinions gracefully - cue a lot of arguments, misunderstandings and shouting matches.

I was also unintentionally unsubtle, in the sense that my behaviours revealed far more about me than I realised. I thought I was being crafty and flying under the radar when in reality, people could tell I was projecting my insecurities or fishing for a certain response.

The same also leaked into my writing, and the writing of other teenagers.

Our experiences and desires inevitably find their way into our writing; as a teenager, I was convinced I could do this subtly, symbolically, without anyone knowing (I was wrong). A lot of the time, I wasn't even conscious I held the desires I was writing about.

But now, picking up a fictional story I wrote as a 15-year-old, about a "quirky" girl with "honey brown hair and crystal blue eyes" who gets the attention of a brown-haired, lanky man, my teenage desires are glaringly obvious.

I don't see this as a bad thing - I'm not trying to make fun of my former self. It's a fascinating thing - to be so young, so passionate, and to be so obvious in our feelings and actions. Being a teenager was this whole other level of vulnerability and authenticity I will always look back on fondly.

So, how does this translate to Jane Austen and Lady Susan?

I think Jane was an intentionally unsubtle teenager in writing Lady Susan; she had a scandalous idea to write, based on certain observations and opinions of hers, and she didn't hold back on expressing them directly.

Just like Lady Susan, the anti-heroine of her novella, Jane wrote in a way that is unashamed and forward.

As for unintentional unsubtlety, that's less clear. We only have vague historical accounts of Jane as a teenager; her desires are mostly conjecture. But I'd bet there's some unintentional unsubtlety in there, too.

As she got older, Jane's works became more subtle, and I partially attribute this to her leaving behind another teenage phenomenon:

Teenagers are often black-and-white thinkers

Ah, the still-developing teenage brain that thinks it knows everything.

I remember those days - feeling so sure of what was right and what was wrong, who was good and who was bad, what was valuable and what wasn't.

Most adults (one can hope) see the value in more nuanced thinking; with it comes greater empathy, diplomacy and intelligence.

But, as Jane Austen writes in Sense and Sensibility, "there is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions".

She's onto something; while rereading my teenage writing partially makes me want to travel back in time and slap some sense into myself, it also makes me smile at the obstinate girl I used to be (the remnants are definitely still there ...).

I will say that, in Jane's writing, it's clear that she was always a nuanced thinker, even as a teenager.

Lady Susan still presents morally grey characters; the anti-heroine does possibly believe she's doing what's best for her daughter, and Mrs Vernon projects insecurity in her accounts of disgust at Lady Susan's morals.

But, in comparison to Jane's later novels, with their characters so full of moral complexity and their pages so rich with societal commentary, her teenage writing is far more black-and-white.

So, I see Lady Susan as a time capsule; a way to remember the fleeting, "amiable" prejudices of a brilliant teenage mind still learning the art of subtlety and nuance.

It's a reminder to hold onto and reread teenage writing of your own, and cherish the person you used to be.

Your teenage writing is still as valuable as your current work, just as Lady Susan is as valuable to Jane Austen's oeuvre as any of her other books. They were all equally important to her journey as a writer. I hope she looked back with fondness at her teenage self.