Deirdre Le Faye (26 October 1933 – 16 August 2020) was an English writer and literary critic.
Deirdre was born in Bournemouth and raised in Farnborough and Reading, during the bombing raids of the Second World War.
After her father died of illness, she left school at 16 and began a secretarial course as a scholarship student.
Using papers in the attic of these Austen-Leigh heirs, over the course of five years of weekends, while working full time at the British Museum, she updated and rewrote Jane Austen: A Family Record (1989).
She was a member of the editorial board for Cambridge University Press's eight-volume edition of Jane Austen's novels and other manuscripts, 2005–8.