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    Persuasion
    Persuasion
    Persuasion
    Ebook349 pages6 hours

    Persuasion

    By Jane Austen

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    About this ebook

    Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.

    Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel, published posthumously in 1818. Austen's heroine, Anne Elliot, is twenty-seven and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortune nor rank and not considered distinguished enough for her family. Unmarried and living with her vain, self-absorbed father, Anne is approaching spinsterhood when Wentworth, who has gained wealth and a name for himself, comes back into her life. Set in the fashionable societies of Lyme Regis and Bath, Persuasion is a brilliant satire of vanity and pretension, but, above all, it is a story of missed opportunities and second chances.

    This edition includes:
    • A concise introduction that gives the reader important background information
    • A chronology of the author’s life and work
    • A timeline of significant events that provides the book’s historical context
    • An outline of key themes and plot points to help guide the reader’s own interpretations
    • Detailed explanatory notes
    • Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
    • Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
    • A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader’s experience
    • Reader-friendly font size
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateMay 24, 2016
    ISBN9781501137402
    Author

    Jane Austen

    Jane Austen was born in 1775 in rural Hampshire, the daughter of an affluent village rector who encouraged her in her artistic pursuits. In novels such as Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma she developed her subtle analysis of contemporary life through depictions of the middle-classes in small towns. Her sharp wit and incisive portraits of ordinary people have given her novels enduring popularity. She died in 1817.

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    Reviews for Persuasion

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    • 3/5
      As an audiobook I found I enjoyed this more than Little Women.
    • 5/5
      This is one of my, possibly my absolute, favourites of Jane Austen's major works (I've not managed to read everything, yet...) It's not the wittiest, I think, though the humour is very much in evidence, but it's the sweetest romance.Anne Elliot, having fallen in love as a young woman, but having dutifully declined a proposal of marriage, lives with her older sister, Elizabeth, and father, the baronet Sir Elliot at Kellynch Hall. Unlike Anne, they are very vain about their place in the peerage, but are careless about the duties of a landowner. Her younger sister, Mary, is married into the Musgrove family, and is also proud of the notice due to an Elliot of Kellynch Hall. When the Elliots decide to move to Bath, Anne stays first with her sister Mary and the Musgroves, and then continues on to Bath. At both these places, she finds herself thrown into company with the man she still loves. Her feelings for him have not changed, but he - now a man of fortune - is no longer interested in her. How will Anne find the happiness in life that she so richly deserves?I do like this book, mainly, as I said, for the romance. But I like the comfortable family life portrayed in this Austen, which, offhand, I don't think we get in any of her other books. The Musgroves senior and the Crofts enjoy life, and are happiest when they have lots of other people around them who enjoy life, too.Although Anne is neglected by her own family, her friends see her value, and she is not as timid or put-upon as Fanny, of Mansfield Park. As a heroine, she has a quiet, purposeful dignity.And I think, of all the Austens I've read, this has the happiest ending.
    • 5/5
      I say this a lot, but it's been a very long time since I read Persuasion. I know the movie (Ciaran Hinds & Amanda Root, the only one worth watching) very very well, and it was a pure joy to be reminded of how utterly and beautifully faithful it is to the book, and another joy to be reminded of all of the elements that did not make it into the film. Karen Savage's reading was lovely and just enhanced my enjoyment of the story.Sparing Goodreads my ponderings on the Defense of Frederick and Why I Hate Lady Russell; they can be found on my blog.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this book so much more on my second read. In my opinion, it still doesn't beat Pride and Prejudice, but it it a good one!
    • 3/5
      When Louisa stumbled, I sighed and, yet, continued through the remainder of the book. I knew that Mr. Scott would be unmasked and that all would be well. The flimsy layers did trouble me greatly. I don't know whether it is national chauvinism or some maudlin coddling but how is it that most consider Austen to be superior to Balzac?

      On a personal level, this was likely the only book given to me by the mother of a woman I was seeing.
    • 5/5
      Lovely and fun book of Victorian era.
    • 2/5
      I don't get all the literary aplomb about this book. I didn't find it to be anything special.
    • 4/5
      Persuasion is a classic, and a charming one! It follows twenty-something Anne as she navigates the path to almost certain spinsterhood. She had a love once, but gave it up due to the expectations of her family and their certainty she could get a "better match." Fast forward: she didn't. But...she might have a second chance.Anne's "late in life" (for the time period) love story is the main plot driver in the book, however my favorite part was her observations, and the comments of, her family and friends. The book is quite savage toward the stuffy upper crust and it was actually laugh out loud funny at parts. It is partially set in Bath, England, where Austen did live, and I think a lot of the author's own feelings toward the people around her were coming out here in a thinly veiled way. Great, short read!
    • 4/5
      My experience when it comes to reading a book adaption of a movie I have seen or seeing a movie version of a book I have read is generally the same. I tend to like the version which I have read or seen first better than the one I've experienced second. This is not necessarily the Case with Jane Austen's Persuasion.I really enjoy the film Persuasion and have just recently finished the novel. I am a big fan of Austen's works generally through the medium of film. I found that the reading of Persuasion really enhanced my appreciation of the film. Much of the dialogue in the movie is pulled verbatim from the book. The only difference being that it was adapted into dialogue from exposition in the original source. This task is done artfully by the filmmakers and removes any need of a voiceover narration which would have hampered the cinematic presentation.On the other hand, a reading of Persuasion gave me new insights and understanding of her characters some that I had grown to love and others I had learned to disdain in my multiple viewings. Mary, for example, is a much worse sister to Anne on paper than celluloid. If you have seen the film, you know that is quite an achievement. There is also more to like about Captain Wentworth, Mrs. Smith and even Lady Russell.I would definitely recommend this book to anyone, especially those fond of any Austen work in print or pixel.
    • 4/5
      I’m embarrassed to admit that this is my first Austen, at least I don’t remember reading any of her books, although I have seen many of the movies based on her books. I’ve wanted to read all her novels. It’s all the more astounding that I’ve managed to not do so given that in high school and through my first two years of college I majored in English/English literature. I’ve always known that there are gaps (an abyss) in my education, yet this particular one does surprise me.I suggested this particular Austen to my book group, partly because it’s the favorite of so many I know, and partly because I knew a bit about it, but except for Northanger Abbey I knew less than I knew about her other novels.This edition of the book has an introduction by Amy Bloom and she tells the entire plot, but atypically I didn’t care at all knowing the book’s story before I read it. I pretty much knew it, and I guess I feel I should have read it long ago. The edition also has the originally written final two chapters, inserted after the rest of the book's text.But, if not for needing to read it for my real world book club, I’d have put it down and picked it up another time. Actually, I think I’d like to read Austen’s books on the order she penned them. But the main problem is that I’m in a reading slump and this is a case of a good book at the wrong time. It didn’t help that while reading I was often listening to the (very modern) college guys upstairs and other modern and annoying sounds. I should have probably made a point of reading this in the park or some other more suitably atmospheric place. The most ideal years for me to have read this was probably 25-35; that doesn’t mean I won’t have other ideal timea in the future. I can see giving this book 5 stars but I don’t think it’s destined to be one of my favorites.Apt title. Beautifully written. Wicked wit! It’s also funny and bright and poignant. But mostly waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting…and I kind of got impatient with everybody. So, I really like and admire Anne, a lot, and I love how Austen skewers the society that was familiar to her. Nobody really escaped my periodic irritation though, nor did the situation. I don’t have patience for certain types of plots, and I’m not big on romance stories, although this one wasn’t as “romantic” as I’d expected. Despite the ending, I did find this story a sad one, most likely because of my own current frame of mind: wrong timing for me. Also, I am aware of Austen’s condition when she wrote this novel. I do hope to pick it up again someday, along with all of Austen’s books.As I was reading I felt sometimes as though I was reading a play. It read that way to me. I could “see” it all. I can see why Austen’s novels translate so well to film.
    • 4/5
      Jane Austen does romance like nobody else. The tension and the anticipation, drawn out for a novel's worth, perfectly balances the convention of her day with the impatience of the modern reader. Jane Austen is the only author of her day that does not try my patience. And she's one of the few who don't mess up a good romance with embarrassment. This, of all Jane Austen's books, is the one I find the most influenced from her life. And it is for that more that the story that I liked the novel. On the pages of the book I found myself more rooting for a scenario where Jane was thrust into society with the man she had wanted to marry but was not of influence enough to be accepted with the tables now turned and her in every position to say yes. I wanted Jane to relive her life as a small part of her did on the pages of her novel.

      Of all the characters in the book Ann was the only likable one and while it would have been better for her if Captain Wentworth had saved her from her selfish family 8 years prior, late is better than never. The interactions full of blushes and meaning had me wanting to shake both of them to swallow their pride and take the first step. It's hard once you've been rejected, had your heart broken, to admit to being vulnerable again, but they were obviously both miserable with just the thought of each other and if they missed connecting with their love this time around, they wouldn't have the meddling of other to blame.

      Which brings me to the statements about society Austen made. Two kind souls perfect for each other are torn about because circumstance is not favorable. To make the statement that money and position are not good judges of character, Austen surrounds Anne with characters one more deplorable than the next: a father spending his family into bankruptcy, a cold emotionally void sister, a selfish competitive sister who whines until things fall in her favor, silly cousins, a gold digger, a power/money hungry man who cares not who he ruins in his climb. And these are the people who are supposed to be good blood and therefore good people. But we all know riches more often than not buy spoiled self-centered shallow personalities, not better ones. I wanted to despise the characters more than Austen allowed because they are presented through the eyes of a loving relative.

      And then we get to the topic of persuasion itself. Modern society cares not for the influence of the elderly nor the advice it imparts, but throughout history and other cultures, the elder reign with too much power. There must be a happy median where one listens to the counsel of those who have lived through it and respects older generations without letting such opinions stand supreme. Nobody makes decisions for one's life better than that person and all well-meaning meddling should be taken and considered, but not let it overpower ones own persuasion. When one makes decisions to please others and not with the best at heart, it is the wrong decision. It's not even just a young/old problem. It's a personality issue too where the shy or insecure let the out-spoken run their lives for them because it's easy to go along than fight sometimes. I say if you get what you want too easily from someone, be careful because it's not given whole-heartedly and your tactics may come back to hurt you in unexpected ways when that person finally breaks. I suppose I related more to Anne than I initially realized.

      There are a few parts that dragged just slightly but overall I once again loved Jane Austen's work. Although I enjoyed this one more for the picture it gave me into Austen's mind and soul than for the story itself, the story is good too.
    • 4/5
      I read this book way back in 1982 and to be honest, gave it 4 stars purely because I remember loving all Jane Austen but I can't actually remember the story. Time for a re-read I think.
    • 4/5
      Great romance though a bit sad
    • 3/5
      While I love Jane Austen and her characters I'm at a stage where I want to be so much more invigorated by a book and I just cannot (to use an awful phrase) "get into" this kind of novel at the moment. Time to spend a while reading other genres and then come back to these. Ahhh, feels good to say that and not feel guilty.
    • 5/5
      What can you say? It's Jane Austen; it's Persuasion; it's brilliant. Funny, sad, wise, true, and still relevant
    • 5/5
      Just read this last night. One of the best novels I have ever read. The 'Classics' are, overall, a number of works whose value I think are slightly overrated, but Austen's work seems (in my experience) to be much superior to the majority of what are considered classics in this day and age.Persuasion is a great tragic romance with a happy ending that I would honestly recommend to anyone interested in a good read.
    • 5/5
      Jane Austin's most mature story. Anne Elliot finds unexpected love with an old flame.
    • 4/5
      A very placid novel, as it was meant to be. Anne Elliot is the only one in her family worth a darn, and the only one that has the sensitivity to see the other side and feel as others do. Therefore, she is the heroine and suffers the most.
    • 4/5
      Anne Elliot has lived with regret over being persuaded to reject the love of her life when she was very young. The objections to this match - money - were quickly assuaged when the man went to war and earned his fortune. But, until now, no contact had been initiated. To her horror, Anne now has to live in close proximity to Captain Wentworth and watch him woo other women. Anne is the most mature of Austen's characters. Partly because she's the oldest, but also because she has accepted the mistakes she has made in the past, and forgiven herself. She handles tragedy and awkwardness with an aplomb which makes even Captain Wentworth believe nothing is amiss in her feelings. Sense and Sensibility has always been my favorite of Austen's books, but Persuasion comes in a close second because of the maturity of Anne's character and Austen's exquisite representation of pain endured for years.
    • 3/5
      A slightly different take on the 'marriage game' but still the same sort of thing Jane Austen is known for. Surprisingly easy to read, an interesting and witty depiction of the manners and social conventions of the time.
    • 5/5
      Probably the most sober of all of Jane Austen's novels, Anne Elliot is on the road to being an old maid when the man she came close to marrying years back returns to her life. It can be painful at times as he is flirted with right in front of her, and she can't say anything as she was the one who rejected him in the first place. Of course, she was persuaded to do so, hence the title. Of all of Jane Austen's books, this was the one I stayed up all night to finish.
    • 3/5
      It's been many years since I read a Jane Austen novel. Would I like her as much now as I did when I read her PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and EMMA? I was 14 then. Answer: no. Or is it fair to compare those novels to PERSUASION, which was published after Austen died?I don't remember needing to reread many paragraphs in order to understand them when I read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and EMMA. But that is exactly why it took me a week to read PERSUASION, which is short and should have been a quick read.Another problem with PERSUASION was probably also the same in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and EMMA. That is, the whole story is about nothing but romance. When I was younger, that appealed to me. Now I want more.Maybe Austen intended to do some rewrites on PERSUASION before she published it. We'll never know.
    • 5/5
      Persuasion is my favorite Jane Austen novel. It gives you a couple that you can't help but cheer for. It has enough angst to keep you reading, and just overall great characters that you get attached to. Such a great read!
    • 5/5
      Persuasion is the last complete novel of Jane Austen. It’s the story of Anne Elliot and Captain Frederick Wentworth and the misunderstandings that lead to their happily ever after. Anne and Frederick were to be engaged to be married when Lady Russel persuaded Anne that she could do better. Frederick went off to be a seaman and came back a rich. As he and Anne are re-introduced the interaction between become comically tense.

      In true Jane Austen style, Persuasion touches a number of characters in Anne and Fredrick’s circles and deals with a lot of interconnected relationships. However, this was one book that I found a little on the slow side, I absolutely loved the story, I just wished it got to the ending a bit quicker - and preferably less of the Musgroves and Anne’s father and older sister.

      Pacing aside, I found Persuasion to be an charming read (or in my case, listen) and a bit of a comedy of errors when it comes to Anne and Fredrick. Jane Austen fans will enjoy.
    • 5/5
      Oh I love my jane. "you pierce my heart" only a woman could think up that line.
    • 4/5
      Jane Austen's final novel, and the last in my re-reading of Austen as an adult. As a teenager, I was overwhelmed by the archaic aspects - the speech, the settings, the manners and lost the books. But as an older reader, the old fashioned aspects blur into the background and I find that Austen is very current. This book portrays a middle daughter with ditzy sisters and a vain and empty-headed father - a scenario that has no trouble transcending a couple of centuries. While the plot is clearly from the early 19th century, I have no trouble greatly enjoying the book in the early 21st century. Read as ebook August 2011.
    • 5/5
      Another fantastic love story by Jane Austen. Full of romanticism and cynicism of the pride of social classes.
    • 5/5
      What can I say? I love all of Jane Austen's work...nice to have a "middle aged" (is she 30?) heroine!
    • 3/5
      Way to make me feel like an old lady for being nine and twenty, Jane. :p It took me a while to get into this, because I couldn't figure out what was going on and where it was going. Anne was obviously going to be the protagonist, but it took a while to sort out the backstory, and get things together. Once it was in place, I got more interested. Anne was obviously the only worthwhile member of her family (with the possible exception of her mother), and she is an admirable character. Sometimes the propriety of Austen's novels makes me want to hit the characters, however, and just say, "Damn it, Anne, tell him how you feel!" A lot of the characters seem to need to get their acts together. I was definitely rooting for her, and it was thoroughly engaged by the end.
    • 4/5
      I think this is my favourite Austen novel. There is something so romantic and appealing about the story of Anne and Wentworth. Getting back your lost love like that. But it's not too syrupy which such stories can often be.

    Book preview

    Persuasion - Jane Austen

    CONTENTS

    INTRODUCTION

    CHRONOLOGY OF JANE AUSTEN’S LIFE AND WORK

    HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF Persuasion

    PERSUASION

    Volume I

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    Volume II

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI

    CHAPTER XVII

    CHAPTER XVIII

    CHAPTER XIX

    CHAPTER XX

    CHAPTER XXI

    CHAPTER XXII

    CHAPTER XXIII

    CHAPTER XXIV

    INTERPRETIVE NOTES

    CRITICAL EXCERPTS

    QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

    SUGGESTIONS FOR THE INTERESTED READER

    NOTES

    INTRODUCTION

    Persuasion:

    ALMOST TOO GOOD

    How many of our decisions are controlled by others? When is persuasion beneficial, and when does it cause tragedy? These are the questions Jane Austen asks in her final novel, Persuasion, published in 1817. Just before her death on July 18 of that year, Austen provided her only personal comments on Persuasion—that it was ready for publication, and that its heroine, the gentle and steadfast Anne Elliot, is almost too good for me. It is a curious comment open to multiple interpretations.

    Austen’s comments appear in a letter written to her niece, Fanny Knight—the inspiration for the novel, according to some critics. The twenty-one-year-old Fanny was persuaded by Austen to break off an engagement with a man she did not love but whom she intended to marry because her family believed him to be a desirable match for her. Anne Elliot’s experience is the opposite: eight years before the novel opens, Anne is persuaded by her family to reject the man she loves because of his lack of wealth and connections. Anne Elliot later concludes that others’ opinions aren’t always correct. She makes an effort to avoid outside influence and when she succeeds in doing so, she is usually better off.

    The reader might assume that Austen means to argue that a calm and consistent disregard for the demands of society and family are the keys to controlling one’s destiny. That is seemingly the lesson she imparted to Fanny Knight: marry for love, no matter the price. However, Persuasion, unlike Austen’s early novels (such as Pride and Prejudice and Emma), is the work of an older woman (Austen was forty when she wrote it) about an older heroine. (Though young by today’s standards, Anne is considered a mature woman past what was generally considered marriageable age at the time.) It is not about a girl on the brink of adult life but about someone who has a past, who has regrets, and who believes that her chance at real happiness is lost. The novel has an autumnal feel, matched by the philosophical gray areas it examines. There is no easy moral but rather a complex set of choices and chances. The novel suggests that influence must be negotiated carefully and that persuasion of one variety or another is almost impossible to avoid.

    The Life and Work of Jane Austen

    Jane Austen received the highest of praise from her brother Henry in his biographical note, published in the posthumous preface to Persuasion: A life of usefulness, literature, and religion, was not by any means a life of event. To those who lament their irreparable loss, it is consolatory to think that, as she never deserved disapprobation, so, in the circle of her family and friends, she never met reproof; that her wishes were not only reasonable, but gratified; and that to the little disappointments incidental to human life was never added, even for a moment, an abatement of goodwill from any who knew her. If such comments persuaded readers of anything, it would be the heroism of Austen’s goodness, a lasting reputation bolstered by the benevolence of her novels’ narrators.

    Jane Austen was born the seventh child of George, a parish rector, and Cassandra Leigh, on December 16, 1775, in the village of Steventon, Hampshire. She had one sister, Cassandra, with whom she maintained a close relationship all her life, and six brothers: James, Edward, Henry, Charles, Francis, and George. Though the family was not wealthy, her father’s position as a clergyman provided the Austen family with a comfortable middle-class income and the full reign of the English countryside we see depicted in her novels.

    Though Austen received very little formal education—she and her sister, Cassandra, were sent briefly to school in Oxford and Southampton before attending the Abbey School in Reading, in 1785—the Reverend Austen was a literary man who encouraged her studies from a very early age. She read widely as a child and young woman, enjoying the novels of Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, and, perhaps most notably, Fanny Burney. Her early work, penned between the ages of twelve and seventeen, and later published in three volumes as the Juvenilia, consisted of parodies and skits, or burlesques, which were read and performed for the enjoyment of her family.

    In 1796, after the completion of Elinor and Marianne, the epistolary novel that would later become Sense and Sensibility, Austen visited her brother in Kent. When she returned, she began to work on First Impressions, which is thought to be an early draft of Pride and Prejudice. Austen’s father submitted the final draft of First Impressions in November 1797, but the manuscript was rejected and returned, unopened, shortly after its submission.

    After the Reverend George Austen retired in 1801, the family moved to Bath, where they would live until after he died in 1805, a period Austen draws from when she describes specific places in the second part of Persuasion. In 1803, Northanger Abbey was sold to the publisher Crosby and Co. for ten pounds. But between 1804 and 1811, Austen seems to have written nothing. Some speculate that she was unable to write during this time because of a series of personal tragedies, including her father’s death, financial trouble, and a love affair that ended badly. In 1806, Austen moved with her mother and sister to Southampton, and then to Chawton in 1809, where they settled in a house on her brother Edward’s estate.

    In 1811, while living at Chawton, Austen began writing again and redrafted Sense and Sensibility, which was published the same year. The next six years were very prolific. She completed Mansfield Park in 1813; it was published the following year. She also began her revision of First Impressions, which she published in 1813 as Pride and Prejudice. She began Emma in 1814, completed it by 1815, and published it in 1816.

    She was working on her sixth and last novel, Persuasion, when her brother Henry became ill. She moved to London to nurse him, and soon after her own health began to fail. She and Cassandra then moved to Winchester to be closer to her doctor. Her brother Henry would later praise her strength during her decline: She supported, during two months, all the varying pain, irksomeness, and tedium, attendant on decaying nature, with more than resignation, with a truly elastic cheerfulness. . . . She wrote whilst she could hold a pen, and with a pencil when a pen was become too laborious. The day preceding her death she composed some stanzas replete with fancy and vigor. Her last voluntary speech conveyed thanks to her medical attendant; and to the final question asked of her, purporting to know her wants, she replied, ‘I want nothing but death.’ She died at the age of 41 on July 18,1817, and was buried a week later in the cathedral church of Winchester.

    Historical and Literary Context of Persuasion

    The Certainty of War

    When Austen first began her writing career, the world was in the midst of great change. The American War of Independence in 1776, followed by the French Revolution in 1789, unnerved the British and European empires. Austen suffered personally from the violent aftermath of the French Revolution when her cousin’s husband was guillotined during the Reign of Terror, a time during which the ruling faction purged its enemies. During the last six weeks of the Terror, a period known as the Red Terror, nearly fourteen hundred people were guillotined in Paris. In the decade preceding the publication of Persuasion, Napoleon rose to power, crowned himself emperor, and then lost all his power when he was defeated by the Prince Regent’s army in 1815. England’s King George III had been certified insane in 1810, removed from the throne, and replaced by his eldest son, who ruled in his stead as the Prince Regent. England once again went to war with America in 1812 (only to fight to a stalemate in 1814). England saw so much instability during this time that lasting peace was doubtful, and the inevitability of future military conflict was certain.

    Persuasion opens with a pointed reference to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, a time of peace which will be turning all our rich Navy Officers ashore. But the officers’ lives illustrate the tenuous nature of their control over their fates. Captain Benwick, for example, suffers the loss of his fiancée while he is at sea. Captain Harville, contemplating the loss of his sister, Benwick’s fiancée, reveals the difficulty a sailor experiences when he knows that peace is only temporary. Asserting to Anne that men have as much capacity for emotion as women, he describes the emotion of a soldier departing for war: [I]f I could but make you comprehend what a man suffers when he takes a last look at his wife and children, and watches the boat that he has sent them off in, as long as it is in sight, and then turns away and says, ‘God knows whether we ever meet again!’ And most notably, Austen describes the happy union of Anne and Wentworth only in the shadow of the certainty that there will be another war: the dread of a future war is all that could dim her sunshine. She gloried in being a sailor’s wife, but she must pay the tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession which is, if possible, more distinguished in its domestic virtues than in its national importance. If the immediate past predicts the future at all, Austen is certain war will soon be on the horizon for her temporarily happy couple.

    The Uncertainty of Status

    What was not certain during this time was the old social hierarchy of power, partly due to the increasing prestige of the military. Those living on the upper rungs of England’s class-bound society watched and worried as money and power shifted toward those in the growing trades and the military, and away from the formerly stable accounts of the aristocracy.

    When he learns that an admiral will take over Kellynch Hall, Sir Walter complains that persons of obscure birth will now enjoy undue distinction, and men will be raised to honours which their fathers and grandfathers never dreamt of. The characters of greatest distinction in the Elliot family—Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret—inconsequential to the plot except as representatives for high aristocracy, more comic than real, are dethroned by Anne: Had Lady Dalrymple and her daughter even been very agreeable, she would still have been ashamed of the agitation they created, but they were nothing. There was no superiority of manner, accomplishment, or understanding.

    The status of such dull figures as Dalrymple would be unquestioned on paper, but the stability of the records of status, such as the Baronetage with which the novel opens, is radically questioned. The hero of the novel, Wentworth, has risen from obscurity and poverty to notoriety and wealth even before Sir Walter obsesses over every detail of his Baronetage, which ultimately cannot protect him from financial ruin.

    A Realist among Romantics

    Austen’s novels have long defied strict classification in terms of their literary context. She wrote and lived during a period when the world—as well as English literature—was in transition. Some say she is a true original with no predecessors and no progeny. Others note the influence of Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, and, especially, Francis Burney, writers from the period of early-eighteenth-century English literature dubbed the Age of Reason. The Age of Reason emphasized the common sense of society; its literature idealized self-control, reason, propriety, and etiquette.

    In stark contrast to the philosophy behind the Age of Reason, the Romantic movement, in full swing during Austen’s time, emphasized individual freedom and inspiration, self-expression, spiritual enlightenment, and the importance of memory and feeling. Austen’s novels were published contemporaneously with the works of Romantic writers such as William Blake, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley. Her carefully crafted ironic portrayals of England’s rural gentry run counter to Romanticism.

    Persuasion, considered by some to be Austen’s most Romantic novel, draws a fine line between sentimental and excessive Romanticism. Captain Benwick, mourning the loss of his fiancée, is portrayed as overly obsessed with Romantic poets: [H]e shewed himself so intimately acquainted with all the tenderest songs of the one poet, and all the impassioned descriptions of hopeless agony of the other; he repeated, with such tremulous feeling, the various lines which imaged a broken heart, or a mind destroyed by wretchedness, and looked so entirely as if he meant to be understood . . . Anne reacts against what she sees as his emotionalism. Ultimately, Benwick is cured of his excessive Romanticism when he pairs with a woman who is in many respects his opposite.

    CHRONOLOGY OF JANE AUSTEN’S LIFE AND WORK

    1775: Jane Austen born December 16 in Steventon, Hampshire.

    1785: Austen attends the Abbey School in Reading, England, with her sister, Cassandra.

    1787: Austen begins to amuse her family with tales like Frederic & Elfrida and Jack & Alice. Her writing during this period until about 1793 was later published as the Juvenilia.

    1790: Austen writes Love and Friendship.

    1791: Austen writes The History of England.

    1792: Austen starts writing Lesley Castle, The Three Sisters, and Evelyn and Catharine.

    1795: Austen writes her first preserved letter, to Cassandra. Elinor and Marianne (the first version of Sense and Sensibility) completed. In October, she begins First Impressions (later to be titled Pride and Prejudice).

    1797: First Impressions completed; manuscript rejected sight unseen by a London publisher.

    1798: Austen begins Susan, the manuscript that would later become Northanger Abbey.

    1801: Austen’s father retires; family moves to Bath.

    1802: Jane accepts a proposal from Harris Bigg, then breaks the engagement the following morning.

    1803: Publisher buys Susan for ten pounds but does not publish it.

    1804: Austen visits Lyme, the setting of Louisa Musgrove’s almost fatal fall.

    1805: Jane’s father dies.

    1806: Austen moves to Southampton.

    1811: Publication of Sense and Sensibility.

    1813: Publication of Pride and Prejudice. The novel receives excellent reviews. Austen reports that she has now earned two hundred and fifty pounds on her writings, including one hundred forty from Sense and Sensibility. The author finishes Mansfield Park in the summer.

    1814: Publication of Mansfield Park.

    1816: Publication of Emma. It is dedicated to the Prince Regent upon his victory over Napoleon at Waterloo. Despite poor health, Austen works on The Elliots (Persuasion).

    1817: Austen and Cassandra move to Winchester to be near Jane’s physician. She begins Sanditon but is unable to continue to work. Jane Austen dies on July 18 and is buried in Winchester Cathedral on July 24. Her final illness is now generally said to be Addison’s disease, but it might also have been lymphoma.

    1818: Cassandra and Austen’s brother Henry arrange to have Northanger Abbey and Persuasion published jointly in a four-volume edition.

    HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF Persuasion

    1776: Declaration of Independence signed.

    1778: France forms an alliance with the American rebels.

    1783: Britain recognizes the independence of the American states.

    1785: Edmund Cartwright introduces the power loom, signaling the mechanization of the textile industry.

    1789: Bastille stormed. The French Revolution begins, sparking national debates on the rights of man.

    1790: Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience published.

    1792: France declares war on Austria. Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman published.

    1793: Louis XVI guillotined. Reign of Terror enacted under Robespierre. England and France at war.

    1794: Execution of Robespierre.

    1799: Napoleon becomes first consul of France.

    1801: Great Britain and Ireland unite as the United Kingdom.

    1804: Napoleon crowned emperor.

    1805: Battle of Trafalgar.

    1806: Pivotal year in Persuasion: Anne has refused Wentworth, and Napoleon attempts to blockade Britain but the British Navy prevents the French Navy from enacting it.

    1808: J. Debrett’s Baronetage of England is published.

    1811: The Regency Period begins. The Prince of Wales acts as regent for George III, who has been declared incurably insane.

    1812: War between Great Britain and the United States, known as the War of 1812.

    1814: Napoleon is exiled to Elba in April 1814; Persuasion opens three months later.

    1815: Napoleon defeated at Waterloo by Prince Regent’s army.

    PERSUASION

    VOLUME I

    I

    SIR WALTER ELLIOT, of Kellynch-hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage;1 there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents;2 there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs, changed naturally into pity and contempt. As he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century—and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed—this was the page at which the favourite volume always opened:

    "ELLIOT OF KELLYNCH-HALL.

    Walter Elliot, born March 1, 1760, married, July 15, 1784, Elizabeth, daughter of James Stevenson, Esq. of South Park, in the county of Gloucester; by which lady (who died 1800) he has issue Elizabeth, born June 1, 1785; Anne, born August 9, 1787; a still-born son, Nov. 5, 1789; Mary, born Nov. 20, 1791.

    Precisely such had the paragraph originally stood from the printer’s hands; but Sir Walter had improved it by adding, for the information of himself and his family, these words, after the date of Mary’s birth—married, Dec. 16, 1810, Charles, son and heir of Charles Musgrove, Esq. of Uppercross, in the county of Somerset,—and by inserting most accurately the day of the month on which he had lost his wife.

    Then followed the history and rise of the ancient and respectable family, in the usual terms: how it had been first settled in Cheshire; how mentioned in Dugdale—serving the office of High Sheriff, representing a borough in three successive parliaments, exertions of loyalty, and dignity of baronet, in the first year of Charles II., with all the Marys and Elizabeths they had married;3 forming altogether two handsome duodecimo pages, and concluding with the arms and motto: Principal seat, Kellynch hall, in the county of Somerset, and Sir Walter’s handwriting again in this finale:

    Heir presumptive, William Walter Elliot, Esq., great grandson of the second Sir Walter.

    Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot’s character; vanity of person and of situation. He had been remarkably handsome in his youth; and, at fifty-four, was still a very fine man. Few women could think more of their personal appearance than he did; nor could the valet of any new made lord be more delighted with the place he held in society. He considered the blessing of beauty as inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy; and the Sir Walter Elliot, who united these gifts, was the constant object of his warmest respect and devotion.

    His good looks and his rank had one fair claim on his attachment; since to them he must have owed a wife of very superior character to any thing deserved by his own. Lady Elliot had been an excellent woman, sensible and amiable; whose judgment and conduct, if they might be pardoned the youthful infatuation which made her Lady Elliot, had never required indulgence afterwards.—She had humoured, or softened, or concealed his failings, and promoted his real respectability for seventeen years; and though not the very happiest being in the world herself, had found enough in her duties, her friends, and her children, to attach her to life, and make it no matter of indifference to her when she was called on to quit them.—Three girls, the two eldest sixteen and fourteen, was an awful legacy for a mother to bequeath; an awful charge rather, to confide to the authority and guidance of a conceited, silly father. She had, however, one very intimate friend, a sensible, deserving woman, who had been brought, by strong attachment to herself, to settle close by her, in the village of Kellynch; and on her kindness and advice, Lady Elliot mainly relied for the best help and maintenance of the good principles and instruction which she had been anxiously giving her daughters.

    This friend, and Sir Walter, did not marry, whatever might have been anticipated on that head by their acquaintance.—Thirteen years had passed away since Lady Elliot’s death, and they were still near neighbours and intimate friends; and one remained a widower, the other a widow.

    That Lady Russell, of steady age and character, and extremely well provided for, should have no thought of a second marriage, needs no apology to the public, which is rather apt to be unreasonably discontented when a woman does marry again, than when she does not; but Sir Walter’s continuing in singleness requires explanation.—Be it known then, that Sir Walter, like a good father, (having met with one or two private disappointments in very unreasonable applications) prided himself on remaining single for his dear daughter’s sake. For one daughter, his eldest, he would really have given up any thing, which he had not been very much tempted to do. Elizabeth had succeeded, at sixteen, to all that was possible, of her mother’s rights and consequence; and being very handsome, and very like himself, her influence had always been great, and they had gone on together most happily. His two other children were of very inferior value. Mary had acquired a little artificial importance, by becoming Mrs. Charles Musgrove; but Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character, which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister: her word had no weight; her convenience was always to give way;—she was only Anne.

    To Lady Russell, indeed, she was a most dear and highly valued god-daughter, favourite and friend. Lady Russell loved them all; but it was only in Anne that she could fancy the mother to revive again.

    A few years before, Anne Elliot had been a very pretty girl, but her bloom had vanished early; and as even in its height, her father had found little to admire in her, (so totally different were her delicate features and mild dark eyes from his own); there could be nothing in them now that she was faded and thin, to excite his esteem. He had never indulged much hope, he had now none, of ever reading her name in any other page of his favourite work. All equality of alliance must rest with Elizabeth; for Mary had merely connected herself with an old country family of respectability and large fortune, and had therefore given all the honour, and received none: Elizabeth would, one day or other, marry suitably.

    It sometimes happens, that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before; and, generally speaking, if there has been neither ill health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely any charm is lost. It was so with Elizabeth; still the same handsome Miss Elliot that she had begun to be thirteen years ago; and Sir Walter might be excused, therefore, in forgetting her age, or, at least, be deemed only half a fool, for thinking himself and Elizabeth as blooming as ever, amidst the wreck of the good looks of every body else; for he could plainly see how old all the rest of his family and acquaintance were growing. Anne haggard, Mary coarse, every face in the neighbourhood worsting; and the rapid increase of the crow’s foot4 about Lady Russell’s temples had long been a distress to him.

    Elizabeth did not quite equal her father in personal contentment. Thirteen years had seen her mistress of Kellynch Hall, presiding and directing with a self-possession and decision which could never have given the idea of her being younger than she was. For thirteen years had she been doing the honours, and laying down the domestic law at home, and leading the way to the chaise and four, and walking immediately after Lady Russell out of all the drawing-rooms and dining-rooms in the country. Thirteen winters’ revolving frosts had seen her opening every ball of credit which a scanty neighbourhood afforded; and thirteen springs shewn their blossoms, as she travelled up to London with her father, for a few weeks annual enjoyment of the great world. She had the remembrance of all this; she had the consciousness of being nine-and-twenty, to give her some regrets and some apprehensions. She was fully satisfied of being still quite as handsome as ever; but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and would have rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited by baronet-blood within the next twelvemonth or two. Then might she again take up the book of books with as much enjoyment as in her early youth; but now she liked it not. Always to be presented with the date of her own birth, and see no marriage follow but that of a youngest sister, made the book an evil; and more than once, when her father had left it open on the table near her, had she closed it, with averted eyes, and pushed it away.

    She had had a disappointment, moreover, which that book, and especially the history of her own family, must ever present the remembrance of. The heir presumptive, the very William Walter Elliot, Esq. whose rights had been so generously supported by her father, had disappointed her.

    She had, while a very young girl, as soon as she had known him to be, in the event of her having no brother, the future baronet, meant to marry him; and her father had always meant that she should. He had not been known to them as a boy, but soon after Lady Elliot’s death Sir Walter had sought the acquaintance, and though his overtures had not been met with any warmth, he had persevered in seeking it, making allowance for the modest drawing back of youth; and in one of their spring excursions to London, when Elizabeth was in her first bloom, Mr. Elliot had been forced into the introduction.

    He was at that time a very young man, just engaged in the study of the law; and Elizabeth found him extremely agreeable, and every plan in his favour was confirmed. He was invited to Kellynch Hall; he was talked of and expected all the rest of the year; but he never came. The following spring he was seen again in town, found equally agreeable, again encouraged, invited and expected, and again he did not come; and the next tidings were that he was married. Instead of pushing his fortune in the line marked out for the heir of the house of Elliot, he had purchased independence by uniting himself to a rich woman of inferior birth.

    Sir Walter had resented it. As the head of the house, he felt that he ought to have been consulted, especially after taking the young man so publicly by the hand: For they must have been seen together, he observed, once at Tattersal’s, and twice in the lobby of the House of Commons.5 His disapprobation was expressed, but apparently very little regarded. Mr. Elliot had attempted no apology, and shewn himself as unsolicitous of being longer noticed by the family, as Sir Walter considered him unworthy of it: all acquaintance between them had ceased.

    This very awkward history of Mr. Elliot, was still, after an interval of several years, felt with anger by Elizabeth, who had liked the man for himself, and still more for being her father’s heir,

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