Persuasion

Anne Elliot, the novel's protagonist, made a mistake: as a very young girl, barely nineteen, she allowed herself to be persuaded by the opposition of her father, Sir Walter, and the "e;persuasion"e; of Lady Russell to break off her engagement to the very young but poor naval officer Frederick Wentworth. Now, at the age of twenty-seven, Anne is alone; what is more, her family's financial fortunes have reversed and her father has been forced to rent out his estate to admiral Croft. But one day the admiral receives a visit from his own brother-in-law, an accomplished and wealthy sea captain: he is Frederick, and this time, eight years later, Anne has her second chance. Austen's last and most mature novel, Persuasion contains an unparalleled portrait of early 19th-century English provincial life and, through the protagonist's thwarted affair, an intense anti-aristocratic polemic.