Persuasion

by Jane Austen, Gillian Beer (Editor), Gillian Beer (Introduction), Gillian Beer (Noted by)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

The Jane Austen brand is well established. Satire, love, quippy dialogue—and it’s all here in her final novel. It’s the story of Anne and Frederick, once engaged, now meeting again nearly a decade later. Will love win out? Probably.

Jane Austen's beloved and subtly subversive final novel of romantic tension and second chances. Now a motion picture from Netflix starring Dakota Johnson and Henry Golding, and a TikTok Book Club Pick.

At twenty-­seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young 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. What happens when they encounter each other again is movingly told in Jane Austen's last completed novel. 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 love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141439686
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/29/2003
Series:	Penguin Classics Series
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	42,640
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	1120L (what's this?)

About the Author

Deidre Shauna Lynch is the author of The Economy of Character: Novels, Market Culture, and the Business of Inner Meaning (1998) and editor of Janeites: Austen's Disciples and Devotees (2000). an anthology of critical essays on the history of Austen's readerships.

Date of Birth:

December 16, 1775

Date of Death:

July 18, 1817

Place of Birth:

Village of Steventon in Hampshire, England

Place of Death:

Winchester, Hampshire, England

Education:

Taught at home by her father

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Chapter I
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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

About Longman Cultural Editions About This EditionIntroduction

Introduction

Table of Dates

Jane Austen Biography

Persuasion

Volume I

Volume II

Original Ending

Contexts

Biographical Notice of the Author by Henry Austen

Jane Austen's Letters to Her Sister, Cassandra

Money From the 1790s to the Regency

On Women and Men

Thomas Gisborne, from An Enquiry Into the Duties of the Female Sex

Thomas Gisborne, from An Enquiry Into the Duties of Men in the Higher

and Middle Classes of Society in Great Britian

Lord Byron, from Don Juan, Canto I

Lord Byron, from The Giaour

The Novel and Romance

Frances Burney, Preface to Evelina

Clara Reeve, from The Progress of Romance

Jane Austen, from Northanger Abbey

Reviews and Other Ninteenth-Century Responses

From the Quarterly Review (Walter Scott) and The Champion on Emma

Contemporary Reviews of Persuasion

Anonymous Reviewer, from The British Critic

Anonymous Reviewer, from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine

Richard Whatley, from the Quarterly Review

Later Responses

Anonymous Reviewer, from the Retrospective Review

Julie Kavanagh, from English Women of Letters

Further Reading

What People are Saying About This

Claudia L. Johnson

Linda Bree has done a marvelous job in this superb new edition of Persuasion. The searching introduction, the informative notes, and most of all the illuminating selection of contextual material make Austen's well-known masterpiece come alive as a compelling and unsettling new text. . . An impressive and admirable achievement. (Linda Bree edition)

E. M. Foster

"How Jane Austen can write!"

Reading Group Guide

INTRODUCTION

Twenty-seven-year old Anne Elliot is Austen's most adult heroine. Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement when persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that such a match is unworthy. The breakup produces in Anne a deep and long-lasting regret. When later Wentworth returns from sea a rich and successful captain, he finds Anne's family on the brink of financial ruin and his own sister a tenant in Kellynch Hall, the Elliot estate. All the tension of the novel revolves around one question: Will Anne and Wentworth be reunited in their love?

On the most basic level Persuasion is a love story, both interesting and entertaining, rich in intrigue and romance. On a deeper level it examines human foibles and societal flaws. The question of the importance of propriety is raised frequently, as is the issue of appearance versus reality.

Readers of Persuasion will discover Austen's talents on full display: her skill for delicate, ironic observations on social custom, love, and marriage nor her ability to apply a sharp focus lens to English manners and morals.

ABOUT JANE AUSTEN

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, at Steventon near Basingstoke, the seventh child of the rector of the parish. She lived with her family at Steventon until they moved to Bath when her father retired in 1801. After his death in 1805, she moved around with her mother; in 1809, they settled in Chawton, near Alton, Hampshire. Here she remained, except for a few visits to London, until in May 1817 she moved to Winchester to be near her doctor. There she died on July 18, 1817.

As a girl Jane Austen wrote stories, including burlesques of popular romances. Her works were only published after much revision, four novels being published in her lifetime. These are Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1816). Two other novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were published posthumously in 1818 with a biographical notice by her brother, Henry Austen, the first formal announcement of her authorship. Persuasion was written in a race against failing health in 1815-16. She also left two earlier compositions, a short epistolary novel, Lady Susan, and an unfinished novel, The Watsons. At the time of her death, she was working on a new novel, Sanditon, a fragmentary draft of which survives.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Sir Walter is disturbed because he doesn't like the way his "heir presumptive" has acted in the past. Why do you think he can't just leave his money, title, and estate to his daughters?

To what extent do you agree with Sir Walter on the value of rank and consequence?

What do you think led Anne to acquiesce to her family's wishes? Should families have a say in whom their children marry?

What does the book illustrate about how naval men view women? What assumptions are they making about women?

Captain Wentworth and Anne are constantly in each other's company. What keeps them from speaking honestly to each other? Would you invite two people who had once been engaged to the same social gathering? Both the Captain and Anne are very polite to each other. How might things be different today?

The Crofts are portrayed as one of the few happily married couples in the novel. What is it about their relationship that seems so different from the other relationships portrayed in the book?

What seems to make Mary happy? Why might women at the time of the novel have focused on such things?

What does Anne's relationship with Mrs. Smith suggest to you about Anne? How does her father react to these visits? Why?

Austen writes of Captain Benwick: "His reading has done him no harm, for he has fought as well as read." What does this statement indicate about what was important at this time? To what extent have attitudes changed in our time?

Captain Harville claims men do not quickly forget about the women they love while Anne claims the same for women. Do you believe men and women differ in their capacities to love and in remaining true to the one they love?

Anne believes she was right to be "persuaded" by Lady Russell not to marry Captain Wentworth when he proposed years earlier. Explain her reasoning. Do you agree with her?

Austen wrote Persuasion as her health was failing, hurrying to finish it before her death. Do you find the novel's narrative carries any sense of urgency or sentimentality, or any other indication of what the author herself was going through as she wrote it?

What was Jane Austen most critical of in her society? What are you most critical of in the modern world?

Editorial Reviews

Critics, especially [recently], value Persuasion highly, as the author’s ‘most deeply felt fiction,’ ‘the novel which in the end the experienced reader of Jane Austen puts at the head of the list.’ . . . Anne wins back Wentworth and wins over the reader; we may, like him, end up thinking Anne’s character ‘perfection itself.’” –from the Introduction by Judith Terry

From the Publisher

Stevenson has read all of Austen's novels for audiobook, in abridged or unabridged versions, and her experience shows in this delightful production. Though dominated by the intelligent, sweet voice of Anne Elliot-the least favored but most worthy of three daughters in a family with an old name but declining fortunes-Stevenson provides other characters with memorable voices as well. She reads Anne's haughty father's lines with a mixture of stuffiness and bluster, and Anne's sisters are portrayed with a hilariously flighty, breathy register that makes Austen's contempt for them palpable. Anne's voice is mostly measured and reasonable-an expression of her strong mind and spirit-but Stevenson imbues her speech with wonderful shades of passion as Anne is reacquainted with Capt. Wentworth, whom she has continued to love despite being forced, years before, to reject him over status issues. Listening to Stevenson, as Anne, describe a sudden encounter with Wentworth, one hardly needs Austen's description of how Anne grows faint-Stevenson's perfectly judged and deeply felt reading has already shown that she must have. Even those who have read Austen's novels will find themselves loving this book all over again with Stevenson's evocative rendition ringing richly in their ears. (Apr.)

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Publishers Weekly

Austen is the hot property of the entertainment world with new feature film versions of Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility on the silver screen and Pride and Prejudice hitting the TV airwaves on PBS. Such high visibility will inevitably draw renewed interest in the original source materials. These new Modern Library editions offer quality hardcovers at affordable prices.

Library Journal

"This splendid edition is ideal for both the student and the scholar of Austen. Always one of Austen's most fascinating novels, Persuasion is made eminently teachable and readable with this wonderful edition; reading it made me want to teach the novel again, soon, just so I can take advantage of Bree's fine work."

Catherine Ingrassia Virginia Commonwealth University

"Linda Bree has done a marvelous job in this superb new edition of Persuasion. The searching introduction, the informative notes, and most of all the illuminating selection of contextual material make Austen's well-known masterpiece come alive again as a compelling and unsettling new text. Bree clarifies subtleties of class structure, social criticism, and manners that elude many North American as well as British students. Newcomers and longtime admirers of this novel will find much to learn from and enjoy here. All in all, Bree's edition deepens and enriches our understanding of Persuasion. An impressive and admirable achievement!"

Claudia L. Johnson Princeton University

Listening to Juliet Stevenson’s marvelous reading, one wonders if she collaborated with Austen in another life. Her narration enhances the text so beautifully that one thinks the author must have coached her. Stevenson applies vocal interpretations that make the characters pop with life. Mary whines and exclaims perfectly; Admiral Croft snaps listeners to attention; Sir Walter Elliot effervesces with indignation over the state of his finances. Only Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth speak in calm, measured tones. Nestled in social commentary targeting the matter of class, the story traces the twists and turns that Anne and Frederick must navigate on the road to love. J.J.B. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

OCT/NOV 07 - AudioFile