Persuasion

Jane Austen

May 2016 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.

Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel, published posthumously in 1818. Austen's heroine, Anne Elliot, is twenty-seven 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 and not considered distinguished enough for her family. Unmarried and living with her vain, self-absorbed father, Anne is approaching spinsterhood when Wentworth, who has gained wealth and a name for himself, comes back into her life. 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 story of missed opportunities and second chances.

This edition includes:
• A concise introduction that gives the reader important background information
• A chronology of the author’s life and work
• A timeline of significant events that provides the book’s historical context
• An outline of key themes and plot points to help guide the reader’s own interpretations
• Detailed explanatory notes
• Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
• Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
• A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader’s experience
• Reader-friendly font size

About the author

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels—Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion—which observe and critique the British gentry of the late eighteenth century. Her mastery of wit, irony, and social commentary made her a beloved and acclaimed author in her lifetime, a distinction she still enjoys today around the world.