- Lady Susan Vernon
The main character is aged about 35 or 36 years old (middle-aged for the time). She is the daughter of an earl.[1] She is a widow of just a few months, who is known to flagrantly manipulate and seduce single and married men alike. As she has been left in a financially precarious state due to the death of her first husband, she uses flirtation and seduction to gain her objectives and maintain a semblance of her former opulent lifestyle. As a widow and a mother, her main goals are to quickly marry off her daughter Frederica (of whom she is contemptuous, regarding her as stupid and stubborn) to a wealthy man, and to marry an even better match herself. Mrs. Vernon describes her as:
...really excessively pretty. ... I have seldom seen so lovely a woman as Lady Susan. She is delicately fair, with fine grey eyes and dark eyelashes; and from her appearance one would not suppose her more than five and twenty, though she must in fact be ten years older. I was certainly not disposed to admire her ... but I cannot help feeling that she possesses an uncommon union of symmetry, brilliancy and grace.
Lady Susan is cold towards her daughter, for whom she feels little or no affection: she calls her "a stupid girl" who "has nothing to recommend her." It is possible that Jane Austen drew on the character of the mother of her neighbour, a beautiful Mrs. Craven, who had actually treated her daughters quite cruelly, locking them up, beating and starving them, till they ran away from home or married beneath their class to escape.[2]
- Frederica Vernon
Daughter of Lady Susan. Oppressed by her mother, Frederica is very shy and it is only over time that the reader can perceive that rather than being stupid and stubborn, she is a sweet, sensible girl whose kind nature continually is at odds with Lady Susan's venal selfishness. Frederica is not as beautiful as her mother, but has a mild, delicate prettiness which, together with her evident ability to feel gratitude, endears her to the Vernons.
- Catherine Vernon
Sister-in-law to Lady Susan. Lady Susan easily perceives how much Mrs. Vernon dislikes her, but allows that she is "well bred" and has the air of "a woman of fashion." She feels far more affection and concern for Frederica than Lady Susan does, and often laments Lady Susan's great neglect of her daughter.
- Charles Vernon
Brother-in-law to Lady Susan. An amenable man who allows her to stay at his home.
- Reginald De Courcy
Brother of Mrs. Vernon. He is handsome, kind, warm, and open, but rather gullible. Mrs. Vernon writes in a letter to their mother, "Oh! Reginald, how is your judgment enslaved!"
- Lady De Courcy
Confidante and mother of Mrs. Vernon. Lady De Courcy trusts her daughter's judgement and is concerned that Reginald not be taken in by Lady Susan.
- Alicia Johnson
The intimate friend to whom Lady Susan confides all her true scheming. Mrs. Johnson has an immoral mindset similar to that of her friend. Stuck in a marriage with a sensible man whom she does not love, whom Lady Susan derisively describes as "just old enough to be formal, ungovernable and to have the gout – too old to be agreeable, and too young to die", she delights in hearing of and making suggestions for Lady Susan's manipulative plans.
