The last novel completed by Jane Austen before her death, Persuasion is often thought to reflect on the author's own lost love.
Sir Walter Elliot has raised his three daughters with his own sense of haughty pride. Elizabeth, at twenty-eight, has found no one good enough to marry, while Mary has, with some condescension, married the son of the local squire. The youngest, Anne, was persuaded to throw off her fiancé, Frederick Wentworth, eight years ago due to his lowly station in life.
When Wentworth returns from the Napoleonic Wars as a captain of wealth and rank, Anne must confront her remorse and her unrequited love for him as he appears to court another woman.
This is a story of second chances, humility, and the perseverance of love.
About the Author :
Jane Austen was born in Steventon rectory on 16 December 1775. Her family later moved to Bath, then to Southampton and finally to Chawton in Hampshire. She began writing Pride and Prejudice when she was twenty-two years old. It was originally called First Impressions and was initially rejected by the publishers and only published in 1813 after much revision. She published four of her novels in her lifetime, Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). Jane Austen died on 18th July 1817. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were both published posthumously in 1818. Wanda McCaddon (d. 2023) narrated well over six hundred titles for major audiobook publishers, sometimes with the pseudonym Nadia May or Donada Peters. She earned the prestigious Audio Award for best narration and numerous Earphones Awards. She was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine.
Review :
"Persuasion...is to me the most profound of her novels, and demonstrates a fresh mastery of Shakespearen inwardness."
-- "Harold Bloom"
"As always, Austen's storytelling is so confident, you can't help but allow yourself to be taken on the enjoyable journey."
-- "Amazon.com editorial review"
"Jane Austen's last work, published posthumously in 1817, is her deepest and most introspective. Austen's view of the drawing apart and coming together of Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth is both wintry and warm."
-- "Globe and Mail (Toronto)"
"[Austen] is a prose Shakespeare. She has a multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings."
-- "Thomas Macaulay"
"There's no one to touch Jane [Austen] when you're in a tight place."
-- "Rudyard Kipling"
