Written in her final illness, Persuasion is Jane Austen's finest novel.

In Persuasion, Jane Austen picks up the pen to tell us who we are and what we want * Independent * Everyone has their Austen, and this is mine. Sparer, more savage - and also more poignant than Pride and Prejudice, this is a novel that tells us wisely and wittily about the nature of romantic entanglements and the follies of being human. It isn't riven with the deep, muscular ironies of, say, Emma, but there is something about the dry lightness of Persuasion that is deceptive. It stays with you long after you've read it -- Nigella Lawson I worship all of Austen's novels, but if I have to choose one over the others, I plump for the autumnal pleasures of Persuasion. This is the last work Austen completed before her death in 1817, and it is rather more tender and melancholy in tone than the novels that preceded it. I read it once or twice a year, whenever I feel in need of a good cry -- Zoe Heller A subtle and elegiac novel - more heartfelt than some of her earlier romances and with a truly appealing heroine -- Joanna Trollope Female self-worth could have been invented by Jane Austen. No wonder we still value her -- Germaine Greer * Guardian *

Jane Austen was born in Steventon rectory on 16th December 1775. Her family later moved to Bath and then to Chawton in Hampshire. She wrote from a young age and Pride and Prejudice was begun when she was twenty-two years old. It was originally called First Impressions. It was initially rejected by the published she submitted it too and eventually published in 1813 after much revision. All four of her novels published in her lifetime were published anonymously. Jane Austen died on 18th July 1817. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published posthumously.