Written during Jane Austen's race against failing health, Persuasion tells the story of Anne Elliot, a woman who - at twenty-seven - is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years ago, she was persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortune nor rank. When Anne and Frederick meet again, he has acquired both, but still feels the sting of her rejection. A brilliant satire of vanity and pretension, Austen's last completed novel is also a movingly told love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities.

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