Persuasion

Part of Penguin’s beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young 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 fortunenor rank. What happens when they encounter each other again is movingly told in Jane Austen’s last completed novel. 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 love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities.

Editorial Reviews

Critics, especially [recently], value Persuasion highly, as the author’s ‘most deeply felt fiction,’ ‘the novel which in the end the experienced reader of Jane Austen puts at the head of the list.’ . . . Anne wins back Wentworth and wins over the reader; we may, like him, end up thinking Anne’s character ‘perfection itself.'“ -from the Introduction by Judith Terry
– From the Publisher

„This splendid edition is ideal for both the student and the scholar of Austen. Always one of Austen’s most fascinating novels, Persuasion is made eminently teachable and readable with this wonderful edition; reading it made me want to teach the novel again, soon, just so I can take advantage of Bree’s fine work.“
– Catherine Ingrassia Virginia Commonwealth University

„Linda Bree has done a marvelous job in this superb new edition of Persuasion. The searching introduction, the informative notes, and most of all the illuminating selection of contextual material make Austen’s well-known masterpiece come alive again as a compelling and unsettling new text. Bree clarifies subtleties of class structure, social criticism, and manners that elude many North American as well as British students. Newcomers and longtime admirers of this novel will find much to learn from and enjoy here. All in all, Bree’s edition deepens and enriches our understanding of Persuasion. An impressive and admirable achievement!“
– Claudia L. Johnson Princeton University