Lady Susan (novel)

Lady Susan is an epistolary novel written by Jane Austen, that she never put forward for publication. It was eventually published in 1871, long after the novels she is known for.

In 2016 film director Whit Stilman adapted it. He borrowed the title Love and Friendship from another of Austen's unpublished works.

Lady Susan Vernon is a widow, and a serial adulterer. She plots to marry off her daughter, Frederica, to a wealthy simpleton. Men are helpless to her charms, and she has a number of admirers, including Sir James Martin, the simpleton, and Reginald De Courcy, a Mr. Mainwaring, and Mainwaring's sister's fiance. De Courcy is the brother of her late husband's sister-in-law, Catherine Vernon.

Many women, including Catherine Vernon, and Mrs Mainwaring see through her. Catherine and these other women thwart her plans to marry Reginald De Courcy, so she ends up marrying the simpleton, Sir James Martin.