Persuasion: Annotated

Jane Austen’s last complete novel. It was published at the end of 1817, six months after her death. Its mellow character and autumnal tone have long made it a favorite with Austen readers. The novel revolves around the lives and love affair of Sir Walter Elliot, his daughters Elizabeth, Anne, and Mary, and various in-laws, friends, suitors, and other characters, In Anne Elliot, the author created perhaps her sweetest, most appealing heroine.In Persuasion, as in such novels as Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma, Austen limned the plight of young women who could escape the constraints of family life only by marrying, and suggest the foolishness of women who believed they were free and not dependent on the financial and social resources of men. At the same time, Persuasion offers an ironic and subtle paean to the true love that enables one woman to rise above straitened economic circumstances and the stifling social conventions that restricted women to narrowly circumscribed lives in the common sitting room.Part fairy tale, part social commentary, Jane Austen’s novel delivers not only her signature warmth and wit but perhaps her most mature and relatable heroine. Persuasion remains true to Austen’s form in being ahead of its time, arguing that where there is love, there is happiness—even in the most impractical of unions.