Twenty-seven-year-old Anne Elliot is Austen's most adult heroine. Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a navel officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement when persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that such a match is "unworthy." The breakup produces in Anne a deep and long-lasting regret. When later Wentworth returns from sea a rich and successful captain, he finds Anne's family on the brink of financial ruin and his own sister a tenant in Kellynch Hall, the Elliot estate. All the tension of the novel revolves around one question: Wiil Anne and Wentworth be reunited in their love? Jane Austen once compared her writing to painting "on a little bit of ivory, 2 inches square." Readers of "Persuasion" will discover that neither her skill for delicate, ironic observations on social custom, love, and marriage nor her ability to apply a sharp-focus lens to English manners and morals has deserted her in her final finished work.

Flirtatious and recently widowed, Lady Susan Vernon seeks a new and advantageous marriage for herself, and at the same time attempts to push her daughter into marriage with a man she detests. The plot unfolds through letters exchanged among Lady Susan, her family, friends, and enemies