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Here is some basic information about Persuasion.
This is the last fully completed novel by Jane Austen, published at the end of 1817, some sources say early 1818, six months after her death.
It is accepted as her most maturely written novel. and Anne Elliot is noteworthy among Jane Austen's heroines for her relative maturity.

Here is a brief look at some literary happenings in 1817 England, the year of Jane Austen's death.

On December 28, Benjamin Robert Haydon (died 1846), British painter, threw a dinner party in London to show his newly completed painting "Christ's Entry into Jerusalem" and introduced poet John Keats to William Wordsworth. The essayist Charles Lambwas also present.

Northanger Abbey was published in December. It was written in 1798-1799 and revised in 1803.

Thomas Love Peacock, a friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote is comic novel Melincourt; Or Sir Oran Hautton, with a character of the novel based on Shelley.

Shelley authored Ozymandias, which was published in 1818.

Those who consider information about Jane Austen's times in relation to her books to be spoilers may want to skip the following completely, although I think that I have avoided mentioning anything that doesn't appear in the first couple of chapters, or off-stage, in any of her novels.

That being said:

"Persuasion" is the Jane Austen novel which is mostly clearly related to contemporary events, and issues, and may repay a little outside reading.

It is sometimes thought that Jane Austen was oblivious to the public events of her day. It is true that she doesn't say much about them, but then, she never mentions that there was air to breathe, either.

The back-story of "Persuasion" is explicitly set during the Napoleonic Wars, and the main action, which involves the sudden de-mobilization of the immense Royal Navy -- with most of its officers -- must be set between Napoleon's abdication (April 1814), and his return from Elba (February 1815). (For those not very familiar with this part of history, Waterloo was fought in June 1815.)

More in the background may be economic dislocations, as the British government suddenly cancelled contracts for the supply of military equipment (uniforms, weapons, etc., etc.), not to mention food for the armed forces, and likewise stopped using the many banks which had grown up to handle its financing, including paying all those soldiers and sailors.

(Not to mention, too, the sudden unemployment of all those ordinary sailors and soldiers, which doesn't figure in the book, so far as I can tell.)

Of the other novels, "Mansfield Park" is clearly set sometime during the Napoleonic Wars (I won't go into the reasons for saying this), and the Royal Navy is just off-stage.

It has been argued, I think correctly, that "Pride and Prejudice" is also a "war novel," as the moving of militia units around the country, and especially on to the southern coast, reflects (fairly long-term) anxieties over a possible French Invasion. (And the shortage of eligible young men of the classes that supplied the army and navy with their officers may also be a factor, although for parents with daughters to be married there were probably never enough good choices....)

It should be said that the early "Northanger Abbey" obiquely references the French Revolution (and English fears of similar upheavals). And the other books *may* reflect the impact of wartime inflation and taxes on those portions of the gentry and middle class that relied on fixed incomes from land or investments -- although it might be a stretch to include "Emma."

To add a bit to Ian’s dates (and I’ll put this in spoiler tags for anyone who has not read the book before):

(view spoiler)[I’m reading it in the Harvard University Press/Belknap edition edited by Robert Morrison, and in his intro Morrison has some interesting notes about the dates in the novel. As Ian noted, the larger frame of the story is the brief period of false elation when people thought Napoleon had been defeated; but Jane Austen was writing at a time when she already knew that the celebrations had been premature—so peril lurked just around the corner for her characters.

Morrison also highlights an interesting date that provides a subtext for this story of the ruling class’s senescence and the rise of meritocracy. Sir Walter’s only son, fittingly stillborn, came into the world November 5, 1789: November 5 being Guy Fawkes Day and 1789 being the start of the French Revolution. So this sprig of the baronetcy dies on a date resonant of two popular revolutions. On a more practical note, 1789 marks the end of Sir Walter’s dynastic line, with his estate going out of the immediate family. The revolutions have claimed another victim.

Captain Wentworth’s postings to different ships also allow readers to track his path through the Napoleonic Wars, and Admiral Croft is similarly an active participant in historic events such as the Battle of Trafalgar. These characters are set in very specific historical contexts, which makes them not solely individuals but also exemplars of the arc of history. (hide spoiler)]

Jane Austen is usually vague about dates, to the point that scholars have gone to great lengths to try to extrapolate them and have argued at length over the dates she intends. So the proliferation of dates in Persuasion seems like a code that readers are intended to unlock.

Another thing for the alert English major to track is the specific works of poetry referenced in the novel. (view spoiler)[On the surface, Anne seems to be reproving Captain Benwick (the male Marianne Dashwood) for his attachment to sentimental, overly romantic poetry, recommending more sober, improving prose; but in fact she is the one who indulges romantic feelings and sometimes acts in defiance of practical considerations, while Benwick in the end makes more prosaic choices. I think the literary references are intended to point to the ironies in their interactions. In Persuasion Austen the narrator often engages in what Morrison calls an “assault on sentimentality” while her heroine is the most sentimental one in all her novels (unless you count Marianne as a heroine, which I don’t). (hide spoiler)]

Sorry these remarks are a bit haphazard; I am pressed for time today and can’t shape and polish.

Abigail wrote: "To add a bit to Ian’s dates (and I’ll put this in spoiler tags for anyone who has not read the book before):

I’m reading it in the Harvard University Press/Belknap edition edited by Robert Morriso..."

These were great additions. Thank you Abigail and Ian. What about information on the poetry of the time?

Persuasion is viewed as not as formally accomplished as her other works. Yet is known for depicting men and women as moral equals which is an inversion of the conventional roles.

I’m not that much of a reader of poetry, but I’ll give it a stab, referring principally to the scene in volume I, chapter 11, where Anne and Captain Benwick converse on the subject. There we find references to Marmion and The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott and to Giaour and The Bride of Abydos by George Gordon, Lord Byron. The Scott poems are historical romances set in the Middle Ages; Byron’s are so-called “Oriental tales” featuring disillusioned action heroes in exotic climes suffering under great sorrows. In 1814, when the story is set, these were all recent works, no more than six years old, and they were the talk of all literati in England and beyond. The poems are intensely melodramatic and intended to stir strong emotions in the reader—analogous to the experience of awestruck sublimity from gazing upon a dramatic landscape. In modern-day parlance, lotsa feelz.

(view spoiler)[The fact that Benwick reads only these implies that he is wallowing in his sorrow and the belief that his life is blighted because of the death of his fiancée. Anne is trying gently to tell him that if he ever means to move past his grief and begin to live again, he needs more bracing reading material: “she ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in his daily study; and on being requested to particularize, mentioned such works of our best moralists, such collections of the finest letters, such memoirs of characters of worth and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment as calculated to rouse and fortify the mind by the highest precepts, and the strongest examples of moral and religious endurances.” What these works might be is not specified in the novel, but I imagine her contemporary readers would have immediately thought of popular sermons, essays such as those of Dr. Johnson, and moralizing biographies.

But we have often seen Anne herself—in the walk to Winthrop and other scenes such as her description of the scenery around Lyme, which echoes the language of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” published in 1816 by her own publisher—wallowing in poetry that feeds her emotions. Even she recognizes that she is preaching what she most needs to learn herself: “nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.”

Jane Austen has a clear point of view on the subject of this kind of romanticism. As narrator in Persuasion she is harshest when the action most closely approaches melodrama or sentimentalism. There are the “large fat sighings” of Mrs. Musgrove when she is thinking about her dead son and, when Louisa falls on the Cobb, the boatmen who gathered “to enjoy the sight of a dead young lady, nay, two dead young ladies, for it proved twice as fine as the first report.” And there is a notably sarcastic comment from the narrator toward the end of the book, when Anne is finally on the brink of happiness and readers are all dewy-eyed: “Prettier musings of high-wrought love and eternal constancy, could never have passed along the streets of Bath, than Anne was sporting with from Camden-place to Westgate-buildings. It was almost enough to spread purification and perfume all the way.” Slap! (hide spoiler)]

As a side note, it’s interesting to compare these types of reading material with the sterile, unedifying reading of Sir Walter, who wants only to pore over Debrett’s Baronetage.

As a non-scholarly aside, while Bridget Jones's Diary was clearly based on Pride and Prejudice, the sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason was less obviously based on Persuasion.

Robin wrote: "As a non-scholarly aside, while Bridget Jones's Diary was clearly based on Pride and Prejudice, the sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason was less obvious..."


I wouldn't call that "non-scholarly" -- any well-chosen example of literary influence is always "scholarly," no matter how contemporary the reference. This one I find particularly interesting, particularly since I'm not familiar with "The Edge of Reason."

(As a broader cultural issue, I have sometimes wondered whether there is an important English novel about women, from at least the second half of the nineteenth-century, that does *not* have either Jane Austen or one of the Bronte sisters somewhere in the background.)

I'm surprised to learn that Persuasion is considered her most mature work, because after reading it I was disappointed by the characterizations, they just did not seem up to par for Austen. The characters all felt more two dimensional than I've learned to expect from Austen (tho' granted my favorite Austen is Mansfield Park, which may have spoiled me for some of her other work).

Maybe what is meant by mature is the inclusion of dates, politics, literary references, etc.

I thought the maturity has to do with the main characters not being young and in the first throes of emotion.

Janice(JG) wrote: "Maybe what is meant by mature is the inclusion of dates, politics, literary references, etc."

And maybe the fact that the leading lady is not young. She has a lot more freedom (though she doesn't always know it) than the younger heroines.

Janice(JG) wrote: "I'm surprised to learn that Persuasion is considered her most mature work, because after reading it I was disappointed by the characterizations, they just did not seem up to par for Austen. The cha..."

I rank it below all the other post-Northanger novels, so you are not alone. It is good to remember that Austen did not see this novel through a final revision process and actual publication.

I agree with you, Janice, about the characterizations. The book has always seemed thin to me. Maybe if she had had time in her life to expand it into three volumes like most of the others? But she was already ill by the time she finished the draft.

Janice(JG) wrote: "I'm surprised to learn that Persuasion is considered her most mature work, because after reading it I was disappointed by the characterizations, they just did not seem up to par for Austen.
I understand 'maturity' to refer to the concerns and behaviours of the characters (at least the main protagonist). Compared to Emma and Elizabeth Anne has greater breadth of experience and understanding, whilst compared to Fanny she has had greater opportunity. Fanny may approach Anne's maturity by the end of Mansfield Park but the story is the tracking of this growth rather than (as in Anne's case) the rewarding of it.
Excuse my clumsy response I am trying not to spoil either the novel nor the future discussion.

It is typically considered her least popular book. The characters are less finely drawn than her other books, and the book is shorter than her others. She was ill when she started writing this book, and some believe she would have fleshed it out more later.

I would have thought her 'least mature', Northanger Abbey, to rank lowest.

Personally, I rank Persuasion as second only to Mansfield Park.

I am glad to see the Mansfield Park love here. Her greatest novel, in my opinion, and one of the greatest ever written.

C.S. Lewis (a great admirer of Jane Austen) offered the argument that many readers are put off by "Mansfield Park" because it is hard to feel superior to Fanny Price's moral sensibility and perception of character: she always sees the truth, even about her birth-family, when it is in front of her. (See chapter thirteen of Selected Literary Essays)

Austen protagonists otherwise need to be disillusioned or better-informed about something or someone in order for them to reach a happy ending.

I think that Lewis was on to something. E.g., Emma Woodhouse in particular fits that description: her whole perception of what is going on in front of her is badly skewed from day one. And, of course, this is what drives the plots of "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice."

At the beginning of "Persuasion" Anne Eliot *seems* to fall much closer to the Fanny Price end of the spectrum -- her blunder was following well-meant advice from a trusted source, years before. So some readers may not warm to her, and her seemingly illusion-free view of things. (At which point, approaching spoilers, I will drop the topic for now.)

Ian wrote: "C.S. Lewis (a great admirer of Jane Austen) offered the argument that many readers are put off by "Mansfield Park" because it is hard to feel superior to Fanny Price's moral sensibility and percept..."

This is an interesting perspective, Ian, but isn't it possible to consider a heroine like Elizabeth Bennett or Emma Woodhouse not so much disillusioned, 'due for a knockdown,' and therefore sympathetic, as much more confident, self-assured, outgoing, what have you, and therefore much more likable to some readers, than the relatively quiet Anne and Fanny?

(Fanny, of course, is not 'relatviely quiet,' more like 'supremely quiet.')

Lewis argued that the more popular protagonists are the ones who, for all their apparent perceptiveness and liveliness, are missing seeing something important until pretty much the end of the book. (Some of the other characters are in much the same state, and they may not be disabused of their illusions in the course of the story.)

This helps drive the plot, of course, but Lewis thinks it allows many readers to both admire and sympathize with the character *and* feel comfortably superior to her.

(Lewis seems to have anticipated more recent "reader-response" theory in academic circles.)

Whereas poor Fanny only gets the reader's sympathy -- and perhaps a little irritation for both her lack of spirit and the "more-morally-enlightened-than-thou" approach to the character. Particularly as the other characters in the book are so lacking in insight into themselves or others.

I think the sympathy for the Dashwoods and the Bennetts has to do with their precarious finances, which in Emma is shifted to the Jane Fairfax subplot.

I think the more one looks at Emma, the more one sees a Lady Catherine de Bourgh in the making- thankfully saved from being an old rich snob by the knocking down.

I'm in general agreement with you -- but I've been trying to expound the view of Lewis on the topic, and without spoilers for "Persuasion," into the bargain. So I may not seem very responsive to your points.

Great conversation. I admit that the moment Emma remembers precisely where Mr Knightly is standing during the conversation about spruce beer is the moment I become interested in her.
I would have said that it is the response of the characters to their 'crises' (opposition, adversity, disillusionmement) that makes me care about them. In Fanny it is the Crawfords and all that follows. For me I think Anne may break this rule...

Availibity

Project Gutenberg/various digital formats

pdf file

Persuasion is the last novel fully completed by Jane Austen. It was published at the end of 1817, six months after her death.

History
The story concerns Anne Elliot, a young Englishwoman of 27 years, whose family is moving to lower their expenses and get out of debt, at the same time as the wars come to an end, putting sailors on shore. They rent their home to an Admiral and his wife. The wife’s brother, Navy Captain Frederick Wentworth, had been engaged to Anne in 1806, and now they meet again, both single and unattached, after no contact in more than seven years. This sets the scene for many humorous encounters as well as a second, well-considered chance at love and marriage for Anne Elliot in her second "bloom".

The novel was well-received in the early 19th century. Greater fame came later in the century, continued in the 20th century, and through to the 21st century. Much scholarly debate on Austen's work has since been published. Anne Elliot is noteworthy among Jane Austen's heroines for her relative maturity. As Persuasion is Austen's last completed novel, it is accepted as her most maturely written novel showing a refinement of literary conception indicative of a woman approaching forty years of age. Unlike Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, the novel Persuasion was not rewritten from earlier drafts of novels which Austen had originally started before 1800. Her use of free indirect discourse in narrative was by 1816 fully developed and in full evidence.

The first edition of Persuasion was co-published with the previously unpublished Northanger AbbeyNorthanger Abbey in late December 1817 (1818 given on the title page), as the second two volumes of a four-volume set, with a preface for the first time publicly identifying Jane Austen as the author of all her novels. Neither "Northanger Abbey" nor "Persuasion" was published under the working title Jane Austen used. The later editions of both were published separately.

Popular acceptance of the novel was reflected by two notable made-for-television filmed adaptations released first in Britain: Amanda Root starred in the lead role in the 1995 version co-starring Ciarán Hinds, and was followed by Sally Hawkins in the 2007 version made for ITV1 co-starring Rupert Penry-Jones.

Development of the novel

The Canadian scholar Sheila Johnson Kindred suggested parts of the novel were inspired by the career of Austen's brother, Charles Austen, a Royal Navy officer, as there are some similarities between the career of the real-life Captain Austen and the fictional Captain Wentworth: both began their careers in command of sloops in the North America station at about the same age; both were popular with their crews; both progressed to the command of frigates and both were keen to share their prize money with their crews, though Captain Wentworth ended up considerably richer as a result of his prize money than did Captain Austen. Likewise, Captain Austen's wife Fanny, whom he married in Bermuda in 1807, bears some similarities to Mrs. Croft, who, like Fanny Austen, lived aboard naval vessels for a time; lived alternatively in Bermuda and Halifax, the two ports that hosted the Royal Navy's North America station; and crossed the Atlantic five times, through Mrs. Croft was middle-aged in the novel while Fanny Austen was 15 when she married Captain Austen. Jane Austen liked Fanny Austen, whom she admired for her "unfussiness and gallant good sense". Even after the outbreak of the War of 1812, Fanny Austen was anxious to follow her husband back to the North America station, despite the danger of American attacks on Bermuda and Halifax, which Jane Austen was impressed with, seeing her desire to be with her husband, no matter the danger, as an attractive trait; and likewise it is made clear that Mrs. Croft had followed her husband everywhere, despite the dangers.

Themes

Although readers of Persuasion might conclude that Austen intended "persuasion" to be the unifying theme of the story, the book's title is not hers but her brother Henry's, who named it after her untimely death. Certainly the idea of persuasion runs through the book, with vignettes within the story as variations on that theme. But there is no known source that documents what Austen intended to call her novel. Whatever her intentions might have been, she spoke of it as The Elliots, according to family tradition, and some critics believe that is probably the title she planned for it.

On the other hand, the literary scholar Gillian Beer establishes that Austen had profound concerns about the levels and applications of "persuasion" employed in society, especially as it related to the pressures and choices facing the young women of her day. Beer writes that for Austen and her readers, persuasion was indeed "fraught with moral dangers", she notes particularly that Austen personally was appalled by what she came to regard as her own misguided advice to her beloved niece Fanny Knight on the very question of whether Fanny ought to accept a particular suitor, even though it would have meant a protracted engagement. Beer writes:
Jane Austen's anxieties about persuasion and responsibility are here passionately expressed. She refuses to become part of the machinery with which Fanny is maneuvering herself into forming the engagement. To be the stand-in motive for another's actions frightens her. Yet Jane Austen cannot avoid the part of persuader, even as dissuader.

Fanny ultimately rejected her suitor and after her aunt's death married someone else. Thus, Beer explains, Austen was keenly aware that the human quality of persuasion – to persuade or to be persuaded, rightly or wrongly – is fundamental to the process of human communication, and that, in her novel "Jane Austen gradually draws out the implications of discriminating 'just' and 'unjust' persuasion." Indeed, the narrative winds through a number of situations in which people are influencing or attempting to influence other people – or themselves. Finally, Beer calls attention to "the novel's entire brooding on the power pressures, the seductions, and also the new pathways opened by persuasion".

Adaptations

Persuasion has been the subject of several adaptations.

Television

• 1960: Persuasion, BBC miniseries starring Daphne Slater as Anne and Paul Daneman as Captain Wentworth.
• 1971: Persuasion, ITV miniseries starring Ann Firbank as Anne and Bryan Marshall as Captain Wentworth.
• 1995: Persuasion, made-for-television film (which was released in US theatres by Sony Pictures Classics) starring Amanda Root as Anne and Ciarán Hinds as Captain Wentworth.
• 2007: Persuasion, teleplay, filmed in Bath in September 2006 for ITV1, with Sally Hawkins as Anne, Rupert Penry-Jones as Captain Wentworth.

Theater

• 2010: Persuasion, a musical drama adapted from the novel by Barbara Landis, using music from the period selected from Austen's own writings. It was performed by Chamber Opera Chicago first in 2011, again in 2013 and subsequently performed by the same company in New York and several cities in the United Kingdom, in 2013 through 2015.
• 2011: An adaptation for the stage of Persuasion by Tim Luscombe, was produced by Salisbury Playhouse (Repertory Theatre). in 2011.
• 2012: Persuasion, adapted for the theatre by Jon Jory, world-premiere at Onstage Playhouse in Chula Vista, CA
• 2017: "Persuasion", directed by Jeff James who adapted it with James Yeatman, ran at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester in May and June.
• 2017: Persuasion: a new play by Sarah Rose Kearns, adapted from the novel by Jane Austen; in development 2016-18 with assistance from the HB Playwrights Foundation and the Jane Austen Society of North America New York Metropolitan Region
.
Note:

I am stay away from summarizing the novel for two reasons. Last time I did that I gave spoilers, don’t want to do that again. And, as I have not read the novel yet, I don’t want to see spoilers myself. Happy reading everyone.

I remember the 1995 Persuasion well. It looked fine on the big screen, and I had no idea it was first made for TV.

I think among the Austen movies that came out in a bunch at the time, it was distinctly non-glamorous and true to the spirit of the book (The A & E Pride and Prejudice has become a classic of sorts, whereas the Mansfield Park of 1998 or so has been buried in oblivion- only not quite deep enough oblivion ..)

Christopher wrote: "only not quite deep enough oblivion"

Touche! I've seen two versions of Mansfield Park on YouTube and they were both pretty bad.

There are a shipload of books on Jane Austen, some of them excellent, but last year when I was part of a Jane Austen reading project, I found three volumes, all available in Kindle editions, especially helpful in figuring out what was going on in the background-- and sometimes the foreground. (I was lucky enough to get all of them on sale, at various times -- only one is marked down as of this writing, and the curious may wish to try to find library copies.)

In no particular order, they are:

Jane Austen and Food by Maggie Lane (this is the one currently available for just $2.99)

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne. I reviewed this on Goodreads, so I won't say more about it here.

What Matters in Jane Austen?: Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved by John Mullan. Lots of things, some of which you may have had trouble with, or even not have known you were missing, some of which would have been immediately recognizable to her contemporaries, some more subtle.

These are all topical, rather than chronological, even though they reveal a lot about Jane Austen's life. For a more straightforward account, well, there are a lot of biographies out there, some of them excellent.

They include a family-sponsored A Memoir of Jane Austen and Other Family Recollections This is available in a lot of forms, some free, others as packaged with one or more of the novels. It is the book most responsible for the "Dear Aunt Jane" approach to Austen, but is probably required reading for dedicated fans anyway.

My favorite modern biography, simply because it is by a modern novelist, and has some pertinent reflections on the processes of writing and publishing, is

Only a Novel: The Double Life of Jane Austen
by Jane Aiken Hodge

I hope some of this is found helpful. (I'd intended to post this information earlier, but seem to have stopped short after assembling it.)

Great list, Ian! I second What Matters in Jane Austen?: Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved by John Mullan—it’s very easy to read and has lots of interesting insights.

Ian wrote: "It is sometimes thought that Jane Austen was oblivious to the public events of her day. It is true that she doesn't say much about them, but then, she never mentions that there was air to breathe, either.."

You make a good point. She seems to have been acutely aware of the political and economic background of the times she was writing in, but that wasn't her focus or the focus of her characters (with a few exceptions). She was more interested in the lives of individuals and their inter-actions with each other than their interactions with the military-industrial complex of her day.

Janice(JG) wrote: "I'm surprised to learn that Persuasion is considered her most mature work, because after reading it I was disappointed by the characterizations, they just did not seem up to par for Austen. ."

I agree with you. I think perhaps that the concept of her most mature work comes from the maturity of her protagonists, who are in general older and more mature than the protagonists of her other novels (Knightley being perhaps an exception, but all her heroines from the other novels, to my recollection, are younger than Anne).

But perhaps it is harder to write a complex, nuanced, and fresh novel about a character who ... well, I deleted the rest of that comment as a spoiler and will wait for the general discussion.

Sara wrote: "Janice(JG) wrote: "I'm surprised to learn that Persuasion is considered her most mature work, because after reading it I was disappointed by the characterizations, they just did not seem up to par ..."

That was an excellent post.

Everyman wrote: "Janice(JG) wrote: "I'm surprised to learn that Persuasion is considered her most mature work, because after reading it I was disappointed by the characterizations, they just did not seem up to par ..."

She was ill when she was writing this. Some experts believe she would have gone back and fleshed out the characters more