Lady Susan

This high-spirited tale, told through an exchange of letters, is unique in Jane Austen’s small body of work. It is the story of Lady Susan, a brilliant, beautiful and morally reprehensible coquette who delights in making men fall in love with her, deceiving their wives into friendship and even tormenting her own daughter, cruelly bending her to her will.

Austen clearly delighted in her wicked heroine—tracing Lady Susan’s maneuverings to remarry yet continue on with her lover, and to marry off her young daughter, with great wit, zest and unfailing panache.

This little-known gem, Austen’s only epistolary work, is perhaps both her funniest and bitchiest book.