Jane Austen died this day in 1817. To remember this incomparable writer I suggest reading the short epistolary novel Lady Susan - an early work of Jane Austen that remained unpublished until 1871, when it was included in A Memoir of Jane Austen by Edward Austen-Leigh, her half-brother. It is the story of Lady Susan, a brilliant and stunningly beautiful widow in her upper thirties who is bad to the bone - she enjoys making men fall in love with her, deceiving their wives and tormenting her own daughter, heartlessly bending her to her will. Unlike the women featured in Jane Austen's other works, Lady Susan is an anti-heroine, in fact she is so cold-hearted in her machinations that she puts her own interests ahead of her daughter’s, or anyone else’s for that matter. It is a superbly crafted novel of Regency manners and mores that will delight you with its wit and elegant expression.
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