Like Jane Austen, Susan Ferrier lived quietly and wrote books wryly observing the social manners of the time. When her first novel, 'Marriage', was published in 1818, it was immediately successful and many thought it was the work of Sir Walter Scott. Her next two novels, 'The Inheritance' and 'Destiny', were written whilst looking after her ageing father and "writing to my sisters three, sewing my seam, improving my mind, making tea, playing whist and numberless other duties".