1871 · published posthumously · Epistolary novella (unfinished-works cluster)
Lady Susan
Lady Susan is Jane Austen's early epistolary novella, written around 1794 but not published until 1871 — over fifty years after her death. Its heroine, the widowed and manipulative Lady Susan Vernon, is Austen's most openly scheming creation, seducing and scheming her way through other people's households.
Lady Susan Vernon — recently widowed, dangerously charming, and entirely without scruple — moves between relatives’ households, angling to marry off her reluctant daughter Frederica while pursuing a wealthy conquest for herself. Told entirely through letters, the novella gives its schemer nearly all the best lines, with none of the narratorial correction Austen’s later heroines receive.
Why it stayed in a drawer
Austen never revised or submitted the manuscript for publication; scholars generally date it to around 1794, making it one of her earliest sustained works of fiction, predating even the first drafts of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. Its heroine’s total lack of comeuppance — Lady Susan ends the novella comfortably remarried — sits oddly against the moral architecture of Austen’s mature novels, which may be part of why she set it aside rather than developing it further.
Frequently Asked Questions
When was Lady Susan written and published?
Austen likely wrote it around 1794, in her late teens, but never prepared it for publication. It first appeared in print in 1871, included in her nephew's second edition of A Memoir of Jane Austen — 54 years after her death.
Is Lady Susan different from Jane Austen's other novels?
Yes — it is a short epistolary novella (told entirely through letters) with an unapologetically manipulative heroine, tonally closer to Austen's satirical Juvenilia than to the moral arcs of her six full novels.
Is there a film based on Lady Susan?
Yes — Whit Stillman's Love & Friendship (2016), starring Kate Beckinsale as Lady Susan, adapted the novella (borrowing its title from an unrelated early Austen work).