Persuasion

Unique Elements
About the AuthorHistorical Context

A Charming Story of Romance and Love by JANE AUSTEN.

Persuasion by BRITISH author JANE AUSTEN is a classic romance novel first published in 1817, posthumously, in the UNITED KINGDOM.

A young Englishwoman gets a SECOND CHANCE at love and marriage, amidst the social whirl of England's fashionable resort city, Bath.

Sneak Peak

'More than seven years were gone since this little history of sorrowful interest had reached its close; and time had softened down much, perhaps nearly all of peculiar attachment to him, but she had been too dependent on time alone; no aid had been given in change of place (except in one visit to Bath soon after the rupture), or in any novelty or enlargement of society. No one had ever come within the Kellynch circle, who could bear a comparison with Frederick Wentworth, as he stood in her memory. No second attachment, the only thoroughly natural, happy, and sufficient cure, at her time of life, had been possible to the nice tone of her mind, the fastidiousness of her taste, in the small limits of the society around them.'

Past Engagement

The story begins seven years after the broken engagement of Anne Elliot to Frederick Wentworth: Having just turned nineteen years old, Anne fell in love and had accepted a proposal of marriage from Wentworth, then a young and undistinguished naval officer. Wentworth was considered clever, confident and ambitious, but his low social status made Anne's friends and family view him as an unsuitable partner. Anne's father, Sir Walter Elliot, and her older sister, Elizabeth, maintained that Wentworth was no match for a woman of Kellynch Hall, the family estate. Furthermore, Lady Russell, a distant relative whom Anne considers to be a second mother to her after her own died, also saw the relationship as imprudent for one so young and persuaded Anne to break off the engagement. Sir Walter, Elizabeth, and Lady Russell are the only family members who knew about the short engagement, as Anne's younger sister Mary was away at school.

Title Details
Originally published in 1817Romance novel