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Jane Austen is my favorite author when it comes to the classics. Her writing is timeless. It's delicate, romantic & sometimes humorous. All these years later you can still read her work and enjoy it.




'Persuasion was written between August, 1815 and August, 1816. During this time, Jane Austen began to suffer from the illness which would, in July of 1817 and at the age of 42, take her life. She did not live to see its publication, which occurred in the year following her death.'





I thought this was interesting, you can see Jane Austen's house in Hampshire,click here for the website, it's become a tourist spot.


>>click here for a virtual tour of her home<<





book: Persuasion

author: Jane Austen


pages: 201

rated: 5 out of 5 stars











read the entire text here




Anne Elliot and naval officer Frederick Wentworth quickly fall in love and become engaged.

'He was, at that time, a remarkably fine young man, with a great deal of intelligence, spirit and brilliancy; and Anne an extremely pretty girl, with gentleness, modesty, taste, and feeling.--Half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, for he had nothing to do, and she had hardly anybody to love; but the encounter of such lavish recommendations could not fail. They were gradually acquainted, and when acquainted, rapidly and deeply in love. It would be difficult to say which had seen highest perfection in the other, or which had been the happiest; she, in receiving his declarations and proposals, or he in having them accepted.


A short period of exquisite felicity followed, and but a short one.--Troubles soon arose.'

Anne's friend, Lady Russell, is against the match and convinces (persuades) Anne to break it off. Eight years later, Wentworth returns, a wealthy captain in the navy,
but Anne's family is about to go bankrupt.

Anne never stopped loving Wentworth.

'More than seven years were gone since this little history of sorrowful interest had reached its close; and time had softened down much, perhaps nearly all of peculiar attachment to him,--but she had been too dependent on time alone; no aid had been given in change of place, (except in one visit to Bath soon after the rupture,) or in any novelty or enlargement of society.--No one had ever come within the Kellynch circle, who could bear a comparison with Frederick Wentworth, as he stood in her memory.'

Anne is nervous about seeing him again. But eventually they two meet again and their first encounter is quickly over, Wentworth barely gives her any attention.

'They had no conversation together, no intercourse but what the commonest civility required. Once so much to each other! Now nothing!

.....Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement.'

After that, the two are often in the same circle of friends and see each other more frequently.

'He had not forgiven Anne Elliot. She had used him ill; deserted and disappointed him; and worse, she had shewn a feebleness of character in doing so, which his own decided, confident temper could not endure. She had given him up to oblige others. It had been the effect of over-persuasion. It had been weakness and timidity.'

They spend time with the Musgrove family, whose one daughter, Louisa Musgrove, is trying to catch Wentworth for herself.
Wentworth seems to pay some special attention to Louisa, and everyone is sure the two will make a match. All the while, Anne has to watch this! Ya just want to scream at her to go and get her man back! lol But, back in those days, I guess that wasn't too ladylike or socially appropriate.


While on an outing,
Louisa actually throws herself at Wentworth at one point, he doesn't catch her, and she falls on her head, giving herself a concussion. Good! She ends up spending time with Mr. Benwick, and soon they fall in love and become engaged.



Enter William Elliot...a cousin of Annes, who cannot be trusted. He begins to really how his affections for Anne, and thier friends and family expect them to get engaged. Soon enough Anne finds out some shady facts about Mr. Elliot's past.



Finally, Wentworth and Anne are at a friends home for a get together, where he writes her the most romantic love letter EVER:

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.

He wrote: 'You pierce my soul.'

Enough said! They become engaged and marry soon after...and of course live happily every after.







I liked Anne, I think she was just too young and naive when she broke off her engagement to Wentworth and in seeing him again all those years later, she was more mature and knew what she wanted for herself. I like Wentworth, he's now my second favorite Austen hero, the man can write a wonderful love letter. This was a great novel, the storyline was really good.









I watched PBS Materpiece Theater's version of Persuasion, which was very well done.




some favorie austen sites:

finding jane austen

austen.com




this has been a part of the following reading challenges:

RRC


mini-austen


TBR


100+

Triple 8

historical fiction