Persuasion (flipback edition) - Softcover

Published for the first time in flipback - the new, portable, stylish format that's taken Europe by storm. 'She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older' Anne Elliot has all but given up on love. Eight years ago, she was persuaded by her ambitious family to break off her engagement to a penniless naval officer. But when Captain Wentworth returns from the war, Anne's old feelings are rekindled. He is now a wealthy man: can he forgive her? Told with wit and tenderness, Jane Austen's last novel is a moving story of love lost and found. Published for the first time in flipback classics - so now you can always carry an Austen in your pocket.

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775 at Steventon near Basingstoke, the seventh child of the rector of the parish. She lived with her family at Steventon until they moved to Bath when her father retired in 1801. After his death in 1805, she moved around with her mother; in 1809, they settled in Chawton, near Alton, Hampshire. Here she remained, except for a few visits to London, until in May 1817 she moved to Winchester to be near her doctor. There she died on July 18, 1817. As a girl Jane Austen wrote stories, including burlesques of popular romances. Her works were only published after much revision, four novels being published in her lifetime. These are Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). Two other novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were published posthumously in 1818 with a biographical notice by her brother, Henry Austen, the first formal announcement of her authorship. Persuasion was written in a race against failing health in 1815-16. She also left two earlier compositions, a short epistolary novel, Lady Susan, and an unfinished novel, The Watsons. At the time of her death, she was working on a new novel, Sanditon, a fragmentary draft of which survives. Gillian Beer is professor of English literature at Cambridge.