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 “persuasion” 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.
