Lady Susan

Lady Susan may be Jane Austen's least known completed work. It is an epistolary novel, written around 1793-4, and is significant both for its genre and for the character of its protagonist, the scheming Lady Susan. It was first published in James Edward Austen-Leigh's A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1870.

While the rest of Austin's heroines are decent and sympathetic characters, Susan is amoral and manipulative. Lady Susan is a subtle and clever novel; the protagonist's motivation and her character (or lack thereof) is revealed more in the reactions of the recipients of the letters than by Lady Susan's own words.