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Persuasion

by Jane Austen

4.12 · rating details · 83,332 ratings · 5,461 reviews

As is often the case with Ms. Austen's fiction, "Persuasion" deals with the social issues of the times and paints a fascinating portrait of Regency England, especially when dealing with the class system. Rigid social barriers existed - and everyone wanted to marry "up" to a higher station - and, of course, into wealth. This is also a very poignant and p...more

Paperback, 224 pages

Published June 29th 2009 by Book Sales, Inc. (first published 1817)

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Sep 04, 2011

Bird Brian rated it

· review of another edition

Recommended to Bird Brian by: Elizabeth

Shelves: literature-19th-century

Oh, Man! I give Elizabeth one of the worst books ever written, and in return she recommends to me this thoroughly enjoyable book… now how much of a schmoe do I feel like? Thanks, Elizabeth!
:)

Romance as a genre contains several popular themes. “Love at first sight” is one of the big ones; “The one that got away” is another. I‘m not sure I believe in either one, but they’re ideas with resonance. After all, how many of us have a failed romance in our past, whose memory lingers on...more

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Mar 31, 2008

Ted rated it

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Shelves: great-books

One of the major sources of contention and strife in my marriage is the disagreement between my wife and me over what is the best Jane Austen novel (yes, we are both more than a bit geekish in our love of words and literature--our second biggest ongoing quarrel is about the merits of the serial comma).

For my money, there are three of Austen's six finished novels that one can make a good argument for being her "best":

"Pride and Prejudice" (the popular...more

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Jan 24, 2012

Margaret rated it

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Shelves: british-literature, favorites, austen, authors-ab

Pride and Prejudice has long been my favorite Austen, but after several rereadings, I think that Persuasion may have overtaken it at the top of the list (or at least equaled it). The heroine, Anne Elliot, is quiet and unassuming and the story of her romance with Captain Wentworth could hardly be more different from that between Elizabeth and Darcy, yet it is perhaps more deeply felt and written.

The story begins eight years after Anne, on the advice of her friend Lady Russell, broke off...more

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Feb 11, 2008

Elizabeth rated it

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Shelves: in-by-of-england, austen-and-friends, reviewed, virginia-woolf-recommends, boston-janeites

This is my favorite Jane Austen work. I love Elizabeth Bennett as I love a sister, but I love Anne Elliot as a woman I would want to be. She is highly principled, smart, kind, and moderate. Persuasion also shows more emotion than Jane Austen's other books. There is a great deal of walking and sighing and reciting lines of romantic poetry to oneself. It’s charming and comic and true all at once.

My favorite part is that Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth are adults. They have enough ...more

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Jul 09, 2008

Trevor rated it

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Shelves: literature

What can I possibly tell you about Jane Austen? I really enjoyed this. I really like that by the end you get to move a bit out of the head of the main character, away from her self-deprecations and almost masochistic lacerations and get to see what Captain Wentworth actually did think of her – rather than her-less-than-self-congratulatory version.

Okay, it is all very romantic – but what I found most interesting in this book was how I felt compelled to consider how much of the world...more

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Feb 08, 2010

Chandra rated it

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Shelves: jane-austen, classics, love-romance, nerdy-girl-bookclub, 2010_reads, anglophilia, favorites

This was my first 'grown up' foray into the world of Jane Austen. What I mean to say is that I read Emma and Pride and Prejudice long enough ago to have mostly forgotten the experience (something I hope to rectify soon!). I think this was a perfect choice for my return. What's interesting about Anne is that she's in a relatively good situation at the start of the book. She is well set up (financially and socially) as the daughter of a Baronet and she is generally well liked and respected. Sh...moreThis was my first 'grown up' foray into the world of Jane Austen. What I mean to say is that I read Emma and Pride and Prejudice long enough ago to have mostly forgotten the experience (something I hope to rectify soon!). I think this was a perfect choice for my return. What's interesting about Anne is that she's in a relatively good situation at the start of the book. She is well set up (financially and socially) as the daughter of a Baronet and she is generally well liked and respected. She is teetering dangerously at the edge of spinsterhood, but she did have several respectable chances at romance in years past. Though not a martyr she seems to have accepted her current lot in life – namely that of being alternately ignored completely or used shamelessly by her own family.

And then we see Anne’s safe internal world turned upside down and inside out when Captain Frederick Wentworth, a former suitor, arrives on the scene. He has not come to rekindle the romance – far from it. He is still deeply hurt and resentful at how Anne discarded him. Anne has long since seen her error and has deep regrets. How these two navigate this complicated terrain within the confines of society and gender is a spectacle to behold! Of course we know how it will go, but we still feel deeply Anne’s anxiety the entire way. And, oh that letter!

Persuasion is a beautiful and unforgettable story that speaks timeless truths about life and love. It helps that Anne is one of the most likeable heroines of all time. She is clever and kind, but not so much so that we feel inferior. She is long suffering at the hands of her selfish family, but not so much that we feel inordinate pity. But the real saving grace is that Anne is not above observing all the foibles around her. In her quiet and contemplative way Anne gives us almost unlimited access to her world – the intricate web of manners and mores of the landed gentry. And if one comes away with a quaint and rosy picture of tea and crumpets and balls then one has missed the point entirely. (less)

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Apr 16, 2011

Sherri rated it

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Shelves: literary-fiction, personal-classics

This is my favorite Austen novel, the one I've read the most times, the one coming to me soon in an annotated version that I cannot wait to read, the one I turn to when bored or discontented or in need of comfort. Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth have made many a sleepless night more pleasant.

The plot, if not already well known, is certainly not unique. A young woman rejects marriage to a man she truly loves because she faces disapproval at home. Her most trusted guide and friend ...moreThis is my favorite Austen novel, the one I've read the most times, the one coming to me soon in an annotated version that I cannot wait to read, the one I turn to when bored or discontented or in need of comfort. Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth have made many a sleepless night more pleasant.

The plot, if not already well known, is certainly not unique. A young woman rejects marriage to a man she truly loves because she faces disapproval at home. Her most trusted guide and friend thinks that such a marriage is too chancy, too likely to lead to pain, sadness, deprivation. Anne accepts this and surrenders the man she loves. He, rejected and angry, goes into the world to disprove all the doubts about him. When they meet again, years later, Anne is still in love but worn down by time, disappointment, and the particular rigors of neglect and casual, subtle abuse by much of her family. He, now a Naval Captain of success and confidence, as well as fortune, comes into her circle again, only he is determined not to notice her and courts the affections of others while she looks on.

Of course, the ending is a forgone conclusion, but even knowing that, while I read, I am caught up in Anne's autumnal world where all is slowly fading, where she has nothing but duty and service to others to sustain her hold to life, where poetry is a dangerous drug and those around her, swirling with their own emotions, are oblivious to the storms beneath her calm, patient exterior.

Austen wrote this one late, perhaps last. It can be argued to be somewhat unfinished, lacking her revisions and corrections. However, it is a polished work, one written from a place of experience and knowledge. It depends on deeper things than some of the others. While it has humor, it does not lean on it. It does not require sparkling wit to keep it afloat, although it has a share of sparkle. No, like Anne, it has deeper, stronger, sturdier supports. This is a calm, subtle work, quieter, more nuanced, perhaps more difficult. It replaced in my regard the sparkly champagne of Pride & Prejudice, and while it recalled the poetry and strong emotion of Sense & Sensibility did not succumb to excess. Yes, there is some hint of the dour morality of Mansfield Park, but Anne is a woman who, considering the extremely tight confines and few narrow paths available to her, acts in her own interests as much as she can. She never frustrates me, never makes me want to shake her out of shyness or fear. Anne is mature, like this novel. She's someone I enjoy spending time with.

A side note -- when I read the first of the Aubrey and Maturnin novels by Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander, I could not escape the notion that this was Captain Wentworth's story, or a story much similar to his. The books paired up in my head and seem unwilling to part from each other.

(While chasing duplications, I found a review I wrote some time ago on a different edition. I preserve it here.)

By far my favorite of Jane Austen's novels, this is the one I think I have read most often (probably 8 or 9 times by now, including one audio book version). It is Jane's most mature work, where her powers of storytelling really show.

It is not a brilliantly witty book -- that's reserved for Pride & Prejudice, where Austen used wit and humor and wry observation. It's not a moral harangue like Mansfield Park. It's not a character study like Emma. It lacks the broad, sarcastic humor of Northanger Abbey or the strongly delineated comparisons of emotional raptures and reasonable restraint of Sense & Sensibility. Persuasion does not use a broad brush. It is a story painted in meticulous little strokes.

That doesn't mean the humor isn't there -- oh, it's there, as fully sharp and dissecting of the foibles individuals and groups fall prey to as ever. But this time Austen is a little more forgiving, or at least understanding. The story of Anne Elliot also shows with greater subtlety and yet greater power the way characters -- people -- change due to their experience and what they learn from it. She practiced this in her earlier novels, but it is in Persuasion that she really perfects it. Anne Elliot changes before our eyes, smoothly and naturally, without any sudden jarring revelations or dramatic events. Things happen to those around Anne, but they do not directly involve her or require her to do much. Yet these events, peripheral as they are to the protagonist, give us chance after chance to learn about Anne and how she has changed and is still changing.

I find pleasure in this book each time I read it. When I'm restless or bored and no other story can hold my interest, just like Anne's father, Mr. Elliot, this is one book where I can find comfort and solace.(less)

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Aug 18, 2007

Vicki rated it

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Recommends it for: Austen fans, and the generally discouraged in love.

This book is not for everybody. If you're one of those people who hates Jane Austen because she wasn't bold enough, well, then you've got your own set of problems, and I won't attempt to unpick them. If you simply don't go in for her, then I can respect that. But if you dig her, or what she writes about, then keep reading.

This is my favorite Austen book. I originally read it in grad school, in an Austen scholarship class. I'd tried reading it before, when I was a bit younger, bu...more

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Apr 15, 2008

HappyHippo rated it

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Recommends it for: Those who believe in second chance and Amang Suramang (?) Ha!

Shelves: classic

This is my second Jane Austen's works after Pride and Prejudice. Patience, is the keyword for me to finished this book. Frankly, it takes me a while to get into the language. And after reading this book I daresay that all of her book contains happy ending and marriages :)
Bottom line, it's about mistakes and second chances. The story about Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth who used to love each other but Anne was persuaded (for a certain reason) to break off their engagement. And their eff...more

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Apr 28, 2011

Kathryn rated it

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Shelves: classics

I love Austen's works, but one just seemed pale when I first read it as a teenager. I have to sigh now that at the time I thought Anne was "too old" to really relate to (since she is now two years younger than I am, ha!) but I really think that, upon rereading this, it was the "romance" that seemed impossibly difficult to appreciate at the age of sixteen-ish. I wanted that delicious first meeting, a budding attachment basking in the radiance of youthful emotion, blossoming...moreI love Austen's works, but one just seemed pale when I first read it as a teenager. I have to sigh now that at the time I thought Anne was "too old" to really relate to (since she is now two years younger than I am, ha!) but I really think that, upon rereading this, it was the "romance" that seemed impossibly difficult to appreciate at the age of sixteen-ish. I wanted that delicious first meeting, a budding attachment basking in the radiance of youthful emotion, blossoming into an early and steadfast and utterly romantic happy ever after. But here is a story that begins eight years after our heroine last saw the man she loves—after giving him up at the persuasion of her trusted adviser!!! We have a love story in retrospect, with at first very little hope of anything beyond reading over warm memories and perhaps the chance that Anne will find a new man who will be kind and good and not mind that Anne is past her first bloom. I was frustrated by the restraint, by the lack of faithfulness to their true feelings, and by all the waltzes of societal pressure that keep them out of pace with one another and unable even to fully communicate when at last they are thrown into the same circle once more.

Well, here I am, "all grown up," and I quite enjoyed my foray into "Persuasion" this time around. I related with nods of understanding, recognition and humor at the various characters that make up Anne's social network. I could more fully appreciate the world of early 1800s England and the necessary restraints placed upon Anne. And while perhaps part of me still wishes for a more impetuous and rule-breaking heroine, ala Elizabeth Bennett, I could truly admire Anne and all she endured with grace and kindness and I could understand if not quite empathize with the circumstances that persuaded her to follow the guidance of others rather than her own heart in the beginning. And while the "romance" in the story is still less ostentatious compared to, say, "Pride and Prejudice" it is none the less vibrant and the final two chapters are utterly scrumptious!

(less)

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Jul 10, 2007

Christian rated it

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Riding a recent Brit Lit kick, and recalling fond memories of Pride and Prejudice in college, I picked up Persuasion at a used book shop in a convenient size for subway reading.

Perhaps the atmosphere affected me--dim lighting on stuffy summer DC metro platforms--perhaps it was the biography of Abraham Lincoln I was reading in the evenings had me meditating upon a certain greatness of character that seemed absent amidst the Elliots and company, but I was largely unimpressed by Persuas...moreRiding a recent Brit Lit kick, and recalling fond memories of Pride and Prejudice in college, I picked up Persuasion at a used book shop in a convenient size for subway reading.

Perhaps the atmosphere affected me--dim lighting on stuffy summer DC metro platforms--perhaps it was the biography of Abraham Lincoln I was reading in the evenings had me meditating upon a certain greatness of character that seemed absent amidst the Elliots and company, but I was largely unimpressed by Persuasion.

Yes, "unimpressed" is the right word. Simply as a matter of craft, the book felt clunky. The revelation about Mr. Elliot's true diabolical nature, for example, drops from nowhere: the scattered (though coincidentally saved) letter of a friend whose connection is the very prior moment's discovery and who herself is a very late addition to the cast. Or take Lady Russell: we are given to understand is a towering personality; but the only reason we have for knowing this is the narrator's continual assertions. We never really get to meet her, never get the opportunity to understand how a matron who makes such errors as a judge of character still commands the devotion and respect of someone as clear-sighted as Anne.

Ah yes, Anne. Another largely unimpressive feature of the book. It is maddening to see her allow herself to be tread upon again and again, and by the end of the novel there is little to make me believe she has learned anything, that her spine is any stiffer. Are we really supposed to believe that she has been following the golden mean between malleablility (persuasion) and boldness all along? It seems rather like she and Mary represent the opposite poles of error, while Louisa is the one hitting a really healthy stride. In fact, the only thing the narrator--and Anne--can hold against Louisa, aside from a girlish giddiness now and then, is her tumble in Lyme. "Propriety or death" may be a stirring oriflamme for some, but I'll choose the girl with a little spirit as my Joan any day, thank you.(less)

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Oct 23, 2011

Jeannette rated it

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Shelves: classics, austen, favorites, 2011-read, cr-buddy-read

Persuasion is Austen's best work, in my opinion, because while Austen wrote primarily about the social customs of her time, with regard to women marrying well, or not, in Persuasion the heroine is 27, and considered almost too old to find a husband. She rejected her first love, because she was persuaded he was not a suitable match for a 19 year old woman from a good family. They are thrown together eight years later, and it is a bittersweet story of regret and lost chances, with just a bit of ho...more

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Jun 17, 2010

Sarah marked it as abandoned · review of another edition

I just...
I can't...
*sigh*

See, it's like this: I'm a third of the way through this book. I already know I don't like it. If finish it, review it, and rate it as I see fit, you'll all get mad. You'll say that I just didn't understand the book. Or, you'll express bewilderment at my "strange" reaction and then show concern. We'll compare Austen to the Brontës. I'll drag Rebecca into this, and then someone will drag Virginia Woolf into it too. I'll say something like...more

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Aug 14, 2009

Sandybanks rated it

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Shelves: classics, british-literature, 5-star-reads, 2009, bbc-big-reads, pemberley

Persuasion, Austen's last completed novel, has little in common with her earlier, more celebrated works. There is comparatively little in the way of surprising plot twists, clever witticisms, or amusing comic moments. It even lacks a heroine that we could look up to, or even identify with. It is as if Austen had dispensed with nearly all conventional means that novelists use to hold the reader's interest. Shorn of literary ornamentations, Persuasion is instead a moving story of lost love and re...morePersuasion, Austen's last completed novel, has little in common with her earlier, more celebrated works. There is comparatively little in the way of surprising plot twists, clever witticisms, or amusing comic moments. It even lacks a heroine that we could look up to, or even identify with. It is as if Austen had dispensed with nearly all conventional means that novelists use to hold the reader's interest. Shorn of literary ornamentations, Persuasion is instead a moving story of lost love and regrets, second chances and reconciliation, told with remarkable economy and precision. What is lost by the exclusion of the qualities that are usually present in her works, is amply compensated by a greater clarity of focus and depth of feeling. The mature Austen was no longer interested in amusing us with her cleverness, or with being a moralist, but instead chose to delve into the secret depths of men and women's inner lives, resulting in a deeply affecting contemplation of the limits of romantic love and devotion.

My Wordsworth edition contains an earlier draft of Chapter Eleven of Volume II, which omits Captain Wentworth's letter (surely the mother of all love letters!) and the fascinating discussion on the constancy of love among men and women between Anne and Captain Harville. Fortunately, Austen changed her mind and rewrote that part. The ending would have lost much of its impact without them.

The other surprising element in the novel for me is the 'feminist' (or perhaps proto-feminist?) depiction of Mrs. Croft and her marriage to her husband the Admiral. While criticism of society's treatment of women, particularly women who are either poor or low in rank, has always been implied in her previous novels, it has never been as explicit as in this one.

It is a tragedy that Austen passed away soon after completing Persuasion, and thus we are left with a mere glimpse of her mature style. It would have been fascinating to know what her subsequent novels would be like.(less)

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Mar 29, 2009

Ceridwen rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, janeites, rule-britannia, capital-r-romantic

I believe it is customary at the beginning of any discussion of Austen's work to line up her books and discuss which ones are the favorites, the most mature, the most critically acclaimed. Such as: Pride and Prejudice is clearly her most liked, but the heroine of Emma really is a better model of someone being confronted by their limitations and learning from them again and again. Fanny Price is the most morally assured, the elder Miss Dashwood the most practical, the best this, the most that, et...moreI believe it is customary at the beginning of any discussion of Austen's work to line up her books and discuss which ones are the favorites, the most mature, the most critically acclaimed. Such as: Pride and Prejudice is clearly her most liked, but the heroine of Emma really is a better model of someone being confronted by their limitations and learning from them again and again. Fanny Price is the most morally assured, the elder Miss Dashwood the most practical, the best this, the most that, et&c. It's weird. Why we do this? Is it because Austen is a girl, writing about girl-things? Because there are only six books?

Anyway, here goes mine: Persuasion is my favorite Austen novel. I'm not exactly sure why. Of course, I, like everyone, loves me my Lizzie Bennet. But I've never been quite easy with her epiphany at Darcy's estate. Why there, surrounded by her spurned lover's pile of furnishings and stuff, did she understand that she never knew herself? The answers bother me. It's too, I dunno, bourgeois or something. (I know, I know, it really doesn't do to bring up this sort of language when talking about Austen, but there it is.)

I like the difference between Anne and the narrator. The narrator says terrible things, is prickly and funny, and does all the social mockery that Austen is best at. Her conjuring and dismissal of Dick Musgrove is truly brutal, and hysterical in its brutality. Anne is nothing of this. She is docile, domestic, competent and extremely forgiving. You'd probably want to punch her in the face. But the narrator doesn't lionize her, doesn't set her up as “perfection itself” (as Wentworth says, in the end). Indeed, Anne isn't even mentioned until several pages into the book, but she slowly appears, like someone being unwrapped. A corpse, or a lover. Both at once.

I like Anne and her regret. I like the silences she shares with Captain Wentworth. Reading this time, I noticed how little was actually said by our protagonists, how their silent misunderstanding tips slowly into silent understanding. Even Wentworth's declaration, the mending of the breach, is done in a letter, not with a voice, a rush of declarations. Those silent, speaking words themselves are penned while Wentworth eavesdrops, listening to Anne's quiet demurrings about her gender's capacity for pain and loss. Ah. And again, ah.
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Jan 03, 2011

Mariel rated it

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Recommends it for: Do I have any peers to pressure?

Recommended to Mariel by: they twisted my arm

Shelves: babywecouldbefamous, filmisgood

This is so not vote whoring! I can't believe I never got any trolls for this thing.

This photo of Jimmy Buffett enjoying a buffett of women is not here for vote pandering. It's here for a good reason.

Persuasion is about pressure from family and society. I told myself (read Persuasion in my teens and again when I was twenty-two) that I'd have told them all to fuck off. (I would've given up on Captain Wentworth when it appeared that he wanted another.) I get it now.

I was shocked and shamed to discover that I'm somewhat distantly related to butt-rocker Jimmy Buffett (and born in the same town too *sob*). I've resisted wearing hawaiian shirts and margaritas (Margaritaville must be the WORST job in the world. I bet it's the lowest caste possible in India). I've resisted making music out of my butt (Jim Carrey can sleep tonight).

I have so! "What's that your singing as you mentally toil over another Jane Austen review?" Tori of the lavatory, flushed all the way to Timbuktu. Supposing what's that suppository to you. But is the butt is the but of what butt. The butt crack is the crack of the butt is the butt of the crack. Won't you share with me, it's all gonna be hunky dory. Tori don't wanna be no whorey. Jimmy Buffett gets more ass than a toilet seat. I'm afraid he's venarial diseased. Er, it's the new Jack Johnson song. I'm not making the Butt of Rock music, or anything. (I'm not hiding my doodle of a toilet with a bow on its top.)

True story: Jimmy Buffett threatened to sue my favorite uncle when he posted a campaign online that the fight for manatees was a ruse to take away boater's rights. I'm TRYING to fight the family pressure to kill manatees. It's hard.

Hagar the Horrible gets drunk on Sammy Hagar's special blend of Cabo Wabo every night and pillages villages for groupies... It is tough to resist pressure, tough to go it on your own when you let yourself be tied down to what your family wants, and inherited personality. I really liked that Austen's book is relateable even if you would just tell everybody to fuck off. Not everything that is easy for me is easy for other people, and vice versa. I think it is good to be reminded of that. Real growing pains stuff. (Um, not making a good enough case for that Buffett photo yet, Mariel...)

ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME! A little loooong time. Tell him five dollar! Give him a great big flush! (Butt punk rock. It could be adapted to a '60s girl group. Mariel and the Whirl Pools.)(less)

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Jul 12, 2010

Kelly rated it

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Recommends it for: fans of Romantic style

Shelves: fiction, brit-lit, regency, owned, 19th-century, its-the-quiet-ones

This is the least Austen like of the Austen novels. Her famed satirical, biting wit in large part takes second place to a growing Romantic sensibility. There is a focus on beautiful imagery, improbable romances and feelings, and heroes that are rather more gothic than realistic. Melancholy emotions rule this novel, even more so than Sense and Sensibility. They're mostly relentless up until the end. Even then, the tone changes in a rather dramatic style that is not at all typical of Austen. My pr...more

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Kelly Aw man, I should've known I'd get in trouble for leaving this one up. This is my review from three years ago and I clicked off the 'add to update feed...more
updated Jul 12, 2010 05:18am

Elizabeth Kelly wrote: "Elizabeth, it is a pretty good letter, and not, as Emma might say 'too short', and we certainly can't accuse his sisters of helping...more
Jul 12, 2010 02:31pm

Jul 03, 2009

Christopher H. rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: british-literature, georgian-regency-literature, favorites, romantic-period-literature, historical-fiction, napoleonic-wars, jane-austen, my-western-canon, favorite-rereads

"Persuasion" was Jane Austen's last completed work before her death; and one that I think she'd have continued to work on to make it even more perfect that it already is.

"Persuasion" is an achingly beautiful love story. A short, but incredibly rich novel, that presents the feelings and thoughts of the beautiful Anne Elliot and the man that she has loved for eight years, Royal Navy Captain Frederick Wentworth. Again, Jane Austen develops her plotting and charac...more

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Mar 17, 2011

Alasse rated it

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Shelves: novel-of-manners

3.5 really. I don't know what to make of this one. I know it's usually regarded as Austen's most mature novel. Sure, the main character is 28 and there's lots of autumnal references, as well as political symbolism - but I didn't find it all that deep and full-fleshed.

It's the story of Anne Elliot, a gentleman's daughter who had become engaged to a captain Wentworth 8 years before the novel begins, but broke the engagement due to family pressures. She has never stopped loving him, and...more

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Jan 21, 2008

Vanessa rated it

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This was only the second Jane Austen novel I have ever read (the other one being "Pride and Prejudice"), but I have seen the films "Sense and Sensibility", "Emma" and "Mansfield Park", and it seemed to confirm my feeling that she tells the same story over and over again. Certainly, so many of her stories have similar elements - the mousy heroine who is full of good sense; the love interest who seems like a class-A jerk to begin with but who she ends up wi...more

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Jan 21, 2008

Charity rated it

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Shelves: 1001books, brit-lit, austen, faves

Poor Anne Elliot. At 27, she's just a step or two shy of becoming a spinster. You see, at age 19, she let herself be persuaded by Lady Russell not to marry Frederick Wentworth, a penniless naval officer. (Anne, afterall, is the daughter of a baronet.) But now a kind fate has thrown Anne one last chance for love.

A wonderful read...full of polite society and second chances. You know that Austen is a masterful story-teller when you already know the outcome of her book, but your heart i...more

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Sep 17, 2011

Paria rated it

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Recommends it for: anyone up for a more serious Jane Austen novel

Shelves: favorites

The saddest, most serious Austen novels -- and one of my favorites. There's been a lot of speculation about Jane Austen's love life, and I'm not really sure what to believe about it, one thing I feel certain of is that Jane must have experienced some disappointment in love, because there's no way she could have written this book otherwise. It's a book about longing, lost love, etc. -- and two hundred years later, it still evokes those emotions with aching clarity.

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May 11, 2011

Sherri rated it

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Shelves: 2011, lit_crit_-_-writing, literary-fiction

This is an excellent edition for the reader coming to Persuasion for the second time, especially one who wants a greater familiarity with the physical reality of the setting and some insight on a literary level into the writing.

I'm very fond of annotated versions of novels, especially novels written before the 20th century. Words change meaning and implication over time. Social mores change, styles of living change, even what it means to be rich and poor change. In the case of thi...more

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Sep 13, 2010

Joel rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, 52-in-2010, classics, dailylit, kindle

God, Jane Austen's book have such terrible and boring covers. "Hey, this is an old book about ladies, we should probably put an old-timey painting of a lady on the front. Probably someone kind of pretty in that ugly way of old paintings, you know what I mean." (Yes, I Do.)

I am reading this one via dailylit emails, which means my version doesn't actually have a cover, so I picked the least offensive/most interesting one I could find. I kind of like this one because it sugges...moreGod, Jane Austen's book have such terrible and boring covers. "Hey, this is an old book about ladies, we should probably put an old-timey painting of a lady on the front. Probably someone kind of pretty in that ugly way of old paintings, you know what I mean." (Yes, I Do.)

I am reading this one via dailylit emails, which means my version doesn't actually have a cover, so I picked the least offensive/most interesting one I could find. I kind of like this one because it suggests to me a different kind of book, full of a-spying on sea adventures, perhaps in the manner of The Scarlet Pimpernel, in which women aren't allowed to actually do anything but they can hide in corners and watch exciting stuff happen or peer through spyglasses at far off boats upon which heroic men are doing manly and heroic deeds.

If Northanger Abbey is any indication though, this book probably favors scenes of people sitting in drawing rooms and bitching about bad manners. Maybe the lady on the cover is actually peering at the neighbors so she'll have something good to criticize later.

-----------------------------------------

Upon finishing, my suspicions have been confirmed: this book involved hardly any spyglass action at all! They were, I suppose, mentioned; apparently Anne (our heroine, Anne) has a spendthrift father who has a bit of a looking-glass fetish; well, maybe fetish isn't the right word. But he has a whole room full of them, and that's kind of weird, but at no time does Anne, or anyone else for that matter, pick one of them up and use it to look wistfully out to sea, longing for a reconciliation that time and unfortunate circumstance has rendered all but impossible to conceive!

But I was incorrect to accuse Anne of cattiness; my prejudgment could not have been more wrong-headed. Sure, there are some catty bitches in this book, like Anne's sister Mary, who can never stand not being the center of attention, even when her own son is nearly dying (or well, you know, back then every boyhood injury was cause for deathly concern, since they didn't have CAT scans and perhaps witches were lurking about). And then there's her other sister, Elizabeth, who, well, put it this way: Austen describes Mary as "not so repulsive and unsisterly as Elizabeth." But Anne herself is the very picture of decorum and level-headed reserve, not even scoffing (outwardly, anyway) at the constantly ridiculous behavior of her boorish immediate family.

Which brings me to my point, which is that there is no cattier bitch in this book than Austen herself, as narrator. She delights in raking all the well-to-dos in the cast over the coals for their many crimes, be they financial frivolity, romantic betrayal, or social scheming (only Anne and her former flame, Captain Wentworth, escape unscathed). Which is good, because you may notice that not a lot ever strictly happens in this book. The eventually reunited lovers (spoiler alert!) never even share dialogue, unless you count one steamy letter (not Atonement steamy, though, this is 1814 people)! But that's ok when Austen is making snarky comments like this:

"Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character; vanity of person and of situation. He had been remarkably handsome in his youth; and, at fifty-four, was still a very fine man. Few women could think more of their personal appearance than he did, nor could the valet of any new made lord be more delighted with the place he held in society. He considered the blessing of beauty as inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy; and the Sir Walter Elliott, who united these gifts, was the constant object of his warmest respect and devotion."

No, really. Just subtract all the refined British reserve out of there and you've got the equivalent of Jane rolling her eyes and making the invisible jerk off gesture. You know the one. (less)

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May 14, 2011

Callista rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: literature-esd

3 1/2 stars for now; I liked it, but not as much as I recall liking Pride and Prejudice. If I decide to give Pride and Prejudice 5 stars when I re-read it, I may raise the rating of this to 4. I will admit that I've been reading so much lighter fare lately that it took me a while and more concentration to get back into reading authentic 19th century prose.
Austen definitely skewers selfish and pretentious people in this one. Anne's father, Sir Walter, and her sister, Elizabeth, are dreadful...more

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Apr 12, 2011

Tom added it · review of another edition

Shelves: abandoned

After about 100 pgs, it seems so similar to Pride and Prejudice that I find myself confusing characters from both works. Everyone I know who's read Austen, whether male, female, young, old, raves about her, but this is second novel of hers where I find myself getting impatient with the prose and the story lines. We'll see. I'm trying to keep an open mind ...

... well a few weeks later any my open mind didn't so much close as gather cobwebs around the door knob and hinges from lack...more

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Jun 05, 2008

Abigail rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Mature Jane Austen Fans/ 19th-Century Novel Readers

Shelves: literature-classics

Jane Austen once wrote that Anne Elliott, the heroine of her final novel, Persuasion, was "too good for me," and I cannot help but echo her sentiments. A woman of great good sense, utterly lacking in snobbery or pretension (despite her father's "elevated" status as a baronet), Anne seems to possess an almost flawless self-control, that, when paired with her self-sacrificing attention to the needs of others, and patient endurance of the many slights she receives at the hands o...more

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Abigail Sherri: you're right, of course... I was being somewhat lazy in my review, calling Anne's willingness to be persuaded her "one" flaw. It wou...more
updated Jun 05, 2008 01:45pm

Abigail Sherri: once again, your excellent points force me to acknowledge that I am being rather lazy - cut that out! :)

I too find myself in sympa...more
updated Jun 06, 2008 10:13am

Jul 06, 2010

Andrea! rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Nineteen-year-old Anne Elliot fell in love – and was then persuaded out of it, because of course, men without fortunes are just soo not worth marrying. Now twenty-seven, an ignored-by-most-of-her-family Anne is encouraged by her younger married sister to stay at her house – and the once fortune-less Captain Wentworth also comes to stay, reigniting . . . something. Maybe.

Anne seemed to be in a bit of a love square at one point, and everyone's romantic interests were so intertwined, it w...more

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Sep 21, 2007

Annette rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: classic

This is my favorite Austen, I think. Pride and Prejudice is the flashy filly to such an extent that this gem is often overlooked.

If you're not a fan of Austen, I'm not going to attempt to persuade you otherwise.

But if you are willing to give it a try, you might find this extremely satisying.

Written toward the end of her life, it is, in my opinion, the most achingly romantic of all her novels.

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Feb 11, 2011

Sylvia rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: classics, fiction

The good: Austen often inserts ironic and funny bits in her narrative, and she certainly weaves together a complex cast of characters who are easy to distinguish into "people you're supposed to like" and "people you're not supposed to like."

The bad: The plot is achingly slow, completely mired in utterly boring interpersonal machinations, and incredibly predictable. Perhaps it's just my modern eye that finds a romance difficult to comprehend which involves nothing ev...more

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About Jane Austen

Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.

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“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you.” — 1,226 people liked it

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never.” — 919 people liked it

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