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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.7
EAN num: 9780192802637
ISBN number: 0192802631
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 304
Printing Date: March 18, 2004
Publishing house: Oxford University Press, USA
Sale Popularity Level: 25229
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Persuasion celebrates romantic constancy in an era of turbulent change. Written as the Napoleonic Wars were ending, the novel examines how a woman can at once remain faithful to her past and still move forward into the future.
Anne Elliot seems to have given up on present happiness and has resigned herself to living off her memories. More than seven years earlier she complied with duty: persuaded to view the match as imprudent and improper, she broke off her engagement to a naval captain with neither fortune, ancestry, nor prospects. However, when peacetime arrives and brings the Navy home, and Anne encounters Captain Wentworth once more, she starts to believe in second chances.
Jane Austen's last completed novel features a heroine much older and wiser than her predecessors in earlier books, and presents a more intimate and sober tale of a love found long after such happiness had been deemed hopeless. This edition includes an appendix giving the original ending of Persuasion.
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Rated by buyers 
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The volumes I purchased all prove excellent. These are texts most useful in an academic environment in contrast to casual reading. As such, they are splendid.
Rated by buyers 
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Anne is the middle daughter of a snobbish and foolish lord living in Victorian England. Her mother died when she was a young teenager, and she has very little in common with her older sister or her younger sister. Anne's older sister is a carbon copy of their father, and the two of them managed to spend beyond their means, to the point that they now have to rent out their home and move someplace more affordable. Anne's younger sister has made a decent match in marriage and is now settled into a life that requires near constant attention from others, especially when one of her frequent imaginary illnesses pops up.
Anne is mostly ignored by her family, and they don't know that she once had a brief attachment to a young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth. A family friend, Anne's surrogate mother figure, thought Anne would be able to find someone better, and advised her to break off her commitment. Anne took the advice, which resulted in devastation both for herself and for the young man.
Now, seven years later, Wentworth's sister and her husband are renting Anne's family home. When the now-Captain Wentworth visits, he and Anne find themselves thrown into the same social circle, and spend many months trying to decide if they still have the same feelings for each other that they did so long ago.
I liked this story, with its insight into the amount of effort it took for Victorians to make proper matches and ensure their way of life would continue. I liked the social rankings and the elaborate rules of behavior, which must have been absolutely stifling for someone living through this time.
However, I didn't identify at all with Anne as a protagonist. I understand that rules of etiquette were different in those days, and it is difficult for me to read this book without looking through a modern-day filter. However, Anne had no sense of self-value, and only seemed to see herself as important when she was being "useful" to others. It is true that her family treated her as a tool, but I couldn't see how she could see herself that way and still have been attractive to the men who vie for her attention.
Rated by buyers 
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Any person considering reading PERSUASION by Jane Austen must have several thoughts in mind before beginning. This book is a classic, written by a master. It requires an investment of your time, your patience, your understanding and your attention. It is a book to be savored, not galloped through as if it were a modern fiction bodice ripper. If you are willing to approach this book with an open mind, expecting only to receive pleasure from the written word, you will most likely enjoy it tremendously.
I read a lot of modern romance fiction. One of the things I have noticed on researching a book through the Amazon review system before I buy it is that so often reviewers state that they were able to finish the book in two hours, three hours, four hours. Do they honestly think that is a compliment to the author? One thing I can guarantee here, you will never be able to say that about PERSUASION. Slow down, read for pleasure, read for the pure joy of observing Jane Austen's manner of combining words. Her punctuation style is totally different from modern fiction. It requires that you hold thoughts in your mind long enough for her to have completed her lengthy and complicated sentence structure.
Fans of Jane Austen often say that one specific book is their favorite. My favorite is the one I happen to be reading at the time. I've read them all multiple times and am always able to find nuggets of pleasure either not noticed before or now understood from a fresh perspective. PERSUASION is a book which shows very clearly Miss Austen's feelings on the English class system and how appearances are very often deceiving. Anne Elliot's own family is (in their minds at least) in the top strata of society. In actual fact, they are very small fish in a wide pond and do not amount to much except when within their own corner of England. Anne spends much time with the Musgrove family and all those surrounding that happy, boisterous group. Although lower in the social standings, they are loving, kind and generous, traits which are totally lacking in her own father and older sister. Anne is considered of no consequence to her family yet is loved and admired by those outside her social set who can see her value and worth. This is a story of young love lost with the opportunity to reclaim that love when maturity has given new insights into reasons, details and personalities. This book does not specifically leave you with a "happily ever after" feeling. Anne will never be mistress of Kellynch-hall, probably never even live there again. Captain Wentworth is a career naval officer with all that implies in his future service during wars. And yet, you cannot help but feel that Anne and Frederick will be quietly, calmly, gloriously happy for their remaining days. Partially because of the eight long years of separation which allowed them both to mature and grow and partially because they are just so very right for each other.
Do not begin reading this book expecting a "romance" novel as written today. If you do, you are doomed to be disappointed.
Rated by buyers -
I hold very firmly to the belief that this book cannot be fully appreciated in a very first reading. It is necessary to read it at least twice, and preferably more.
It's not as immediately pleasing as some of Ms. Austen's other works, Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility etc., but those who take the time to appreciate this book will find it well worth the effort.
Rated by buyers -
Loved it!
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