Persuasion

Originally published in 1818, Jane Austen’s beloved novel, Persuasion , features her trademark humor, style, and memorable characters, including Anne Elliot, one of her most appealing heroines. Set in Somersetshire and Bath, the novel follows Sir Walter Elliot, his daughters Elizabeth, Anne, and Mary, and the various in-laws, friends, and suitors in their adventures in life and love. The focus of the novel is Anne’s thwarted romance with Captain Frederick Wentworth, whom she originally met and fell in love with when she was 19, but whom she ultimately rejected because he was deemed too poor. After eight years apart, Captain Wentworth has made his fortune in the navy, but Anne is now the one with insecurities about his feelings for her. Persuasion , like Austen’s other works, such as Sense and Sensibility , Pride and Prejudice , and Emma , tells the stories of young women straining against the obligations and expectations of family and social convention. Yet, at the same time, it offers romance and optimism, crafting a story that is sure to appeal to not only admirers of Jane Austen, but readers who appreciate finely drawn characterizations, social satire, and the world of 19th century England. Jane Austen (1775-1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature. Her realism, biting irony and social commentary have gained her historical importance among scholars and critics. Austen lived her entire life as part of a close-knit family located on the lower fringes of the English landed gentry. She was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as through her own reading. The steadfast support of her family was critical to her development as a professional writer. Her artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years until she was about thirty-five years old. During this period, she experimented with various literary forms, including the epistolary novel which she wrote at the age of eleven, and later wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began a fourth. From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion , both published posthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled Sanditon, but died before completing it. Austen’s works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century realism. Her plots, though fundamentally comic, highlight the dependence of women on marriage to secure social standing and economic security. Her work brought her little personal fame and only a few positive reviews during her lifetime, but the publication in 1869 of her nephew’s A Memoir of Jane Austen introduced her to a wider public, and by the 1940s she had become widely accepted in academia as a great English writer. The second half of the 20th century saw a proliferation of Austen scholarship and the emergence of a Janeite fan culture. Austen has inspired a large number of critical essays and literary anthologies. Her novels have inspired many films, from 1940’s Pride and Prejudice to more recent productions like Sense and Sensibility (1995) and Love & Friendship (2016). Today, Austen is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language.