Persuasion

Synopsis

Persuasion is the last novel Jane Austen completed. It was published on 20 December 1817, six months after her death, although its title page is dated 1818. Anne Elliot, daughter of the vain baronet Sir Walter Elliot, is twenty-seven and unmarried. At nineteen she had accepted a proposal from Frederick Wentworth, then a young and as yet undistinguished naval officer, but she broke off the engagement after being persuaded by Lady Russell, a trusted friend of the family. Now Wentworth returns, made wealthy by the prize ships captured in the war, and the two meet again in Uppercross, Lyme Regis and Bath. Told largely through Anne's own thoughts, the novel explores constancy, regret and the power of persuasion, and sets inherited rank against the merit rewarded by the Navy.