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Jane
Austen (17751817)
Persuasion c. July 1816
Egerton MS. 3038
By permission of The British Library

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Jane
Austen's Persuasion
c.1816
Jane
Austen (17751817) lived all her life in
the quiet English countryside; she was never apart
from her relatives, and had few dealings with
others outside her circle. Her novels are almost
exclusively concerned with the romantic courtships
and gossip of England's provincial middle class.
Her sympathetic and shrewdly observed characterisations,
however, have meant that few authors in the English
language have been so enduringly popular.
Persuasion
was Austen's last novel, completed in 1816 and
published the year after her death. This 1816
draft of the final two chapters (she later expanded
them into three) is all that survives of the original
manuscript. Austen chose to write on paper of
an unusual size and shape so that she could hide
her work if anyone suddenly entered the room;
like the novel's central character, Anne, perhaps
she tended to hide her true self from the world.
It may be a mistake to identify Austen with her
character, but their similarity of circumstance
may explain why Anne remains such a likable character.
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