Lady Susan

Lady Susan is a short epistolary novel, written in letters, and left unpublished in Austen's lifetime. Its title character is a beautiful, clever widow who uses charm and manipulation to secure her own comfort and advantage, whatever the cost to those around her.

Staying with relatives and plotting a match for her daughter, she writes frankly to a confidante and also presents a very different face to others. The book is darker and sharper than Austen's later work, and offers a lively look at her early skill with irony and with an unscrupulous heroine.