Lady Susan

She is beautiful. She is brilliant. She is utterly without mercy.

Jane Austen's most scandalous heroine is not a shy, misunderstood wallflower. She is a predator, and she is magnificent.

Lady Susan Vernon, a dazzling widow in her thirties, has run through her fortune and her reputation. Gossip follows her from one country house to another. She flirts. She lies. She manipulates. She is openly carrying on an affair with a married man while simultaneously scheming to marry off her daughter to a wealthy fool—and securing a rich husband for herself at the same time. Her letters (the novel is told entirely through correspondence) reveal a mind of terrifying clarity and zero moral compass. She is charming, witty, and utterly ruthless. And Austen, for once, lets her win.

This is Austen at her most wicked and subversive: an epistolary novella about a woman who refuses to play by the rules—and gets away with it. Lady Susan is a delicious, dark delight, unlike anything else Austen ever wrote.

• Written in 1794 but not published until 1871, long after Austen's death

• Austen's only epistolary novel (told entirely through letters)

• Features a villainous protagonist who anticipates the great anti-heroines of later literature

Available in multiple formats:

• Paperback & Hardcover: Beautifully designed print editions presenting the complete, unabridged text made to last.

• Ebook: DRM-free EPUB compatible with Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and all major e-readers.

• Audiobook: Professionally narrated, complete and unabridged, available on all major audiobook platforms.

A beautifully crafted edition for your shelf, your device, or your ears or the perfect gift for anyone who knows that the most dangerous woman in the room is always the most entertaining.

About the Author

Jane Austen (1775–1817) was an English novelist, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language. Born in Steventon, Hampshire, the seventh of eight children, she began writing as a teenager. Lady Susan was written in 1794, when Austen was just 19 years old, but she never submitted it for publication. The novella survives in a fair copy made by Austen herself, now held in the British Library. Unlike her later, more famous works, Lady Susan is unapologetically cynical: its heroine is a scheming predator, and there is no moral reckoning. It was finally published posthumously in 1871 as part of A Memoir of Jane Austen by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh. Austen's other major works include Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), Northanger Abbey (1818), and Persuasion (1818). She died in Winchester in 1817 at the age of 41 and is buried in Winchester Cathedral.