In her major novels, Austen establishes a trademark witty, satirical, playful tone through the use of free indirect discourse. In works such as Emma or Pride and Prejudice, the very presence of a narrator helps establish such tonality. Lady Susan, however, is an epistolary novel; as such, there is no narrator through which to establish this tone. Austen instead utilizes characterization as her primary means of creating a tonal baseline. Where Austen's narrator would typically comment on the foibles and idiosyncrasies of the characters, the characters must themselves introduce and incite commentary. Lady Susan herself—as an unreliable narrator—is a key component of Austen's character-driven tonality.
Though the free indirect discourse and narrator commentary that characterize Austen's major works are, for the most part, lacking in Lady Susan, Austen does provide readers a taste of her emerging tonal trademark. In the conclusion, Austen's witty, playful tone shines through as she briefly introduces a narrator to wrap up narrative threads in her epistolary novel. Though this small section of the narrative is less developed than her later work, Austen nonetheless approaches her characters with characteristic incisiveness and humor, as evidenced in the following excerpt from Lady Susan's conclusion:
[Mrs. Vernon's] anxiety on the subject made her press for an early visit to London; and Mr. Vernon who, as it must have already appeared, lived only to do whatever he was desired, soon found some accommodating Business to call him thither.
