Love & Friendship

Set in the 1790s, the widowed Lady Susan Vernon seeks refuge with her in-laws as rumors about her private life circulate through society. While staying at the estate, Lady Susan decides to find herself and her daughter, Frederica, a husband. The promotional announcement by Little, Brown and Company for the novelization supplemented the summary to Stillman's adaptation stating; "Recently widowed, Lady Susan arrives, unannounced, at her brother-in-law's estate to wait out colorful rumors about her dalliances circulating through polite society. While there, she becomes determined to secure a new husband for herself, and one for her reluctant debutante daughter, Frederica, too. As Lady Susan embarks on a controversial relationship with a married man, seduction, deception, broken hearts, and gossip all ensue. With a pitch-perfect Austenian sensibility, Stillman breathes new life into Austen's work, making it his own by adding original narration from a character comically loyal to the story's fiendishly manipulative heroine, Lady Susan."