Audiobook · read by volunteers
Persuasion
Jane Austen (1775–1817)
Read by Tina Tilney, Kara Shallenberg (1969-2023), Karen Savage, Laurie Anne Walden, Michelle Crandall, Debra Lynn, Missie, Cori Samuel, Julia Claussen · 24 chapters · 8 h 30
About the book
Anne Elliot was once persuaded to break off an engagement with a young naval officer who had no fortune, and she has regretted it ever since. Now twenty-seven, she lives in the shadow of a vain father and a selfish family. Then Captain Wentworth, grown prosperous and admired, returns to her neighbourhood, and she must watch him as he seems to seek another woman's company. Can second chances exist? Jane Austen's last completed novel is her most autumnal and tender, full of quiet feeling, of sea air and country walks, and of a heroine whose steadiness and good sense win us over. Twenty-four chapters and about eight and a half hours carry you through one of the most moving love stories in English fiction.
Introduction
Jane Austen lived from 1775 to 1817. Persuasion was the last novel she completed, and it was published after her death, together with Northanger Abbey, at the very end of 1817, though its title page carries the date 1818.
The novel stands apart from her earlier books. Its heroine is older than most of Austen's, and she has already lost her bloom in the eyes of her family. The mood is gentler, more reflective and more melancholic than in Pride and Prejudice, and it is shaped by a sense of time passing. Austen also gives an unusual place to the navy, whose officers, enriched by the Napoleonic wars, rise in society and challenge the old ideas of rank. Her portrait of a family bent on appearances is as sharp as ever, and the scenes at Bath and Lyme are among her most vivid. Readers have often found Persuasion the most emotional of her works. Its famous letter, in which a man writes of his feelings, is among the most admired passages in English fiction.
The recording was made by LibriVox volunteers. It consists of twenty-four chapters and runs to about eight and a half hours. Why listen today? Because the book speaks eloquently about regret, about the influence of others on our choices, and about the possibility of happiness late in life. It is a favourite of many Austen readers, and a wonderful place to start.
Public domain
Jane Austen died in 1817: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text