Persuasion narrates the emotional journey of its protagonist Anne Elliot, who chances upon Captain Wentworth, a suitor she was persuaded to reject seven years earlier, and whose reappearance causes her to reflect on her past decisions and contemplate her marital future. Vividly depicting the society holiday towns of Lyme Regis and Bath and infused with its author's trademark wit, Austen's last completed novel, set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, is an entertaining and enduring account of the dilemmas facing young women in the early nineteenth century.

"As a creative realist, giving to her characters the very body and pressure of actual life, no writer, living or dead, has surpassed her." -- John Cowper Powys

The witty and sharply satirical novels of Jane Austen have an influence that shows no sign of waning, with continual adaptations and echoes in contemporary culture, and an ever-enthousiastic audience.