As useful as Austen’s naval characters are, despite whatever challenges they might face in the service, when the novel’s crisis comes at the end of the first volume, it is another character altogether who proves their value: Anne Elliot. On one level, Anne Elliot’s story reinforces Austen’s critique of the class-based society of her time. But Persuasion‘s resolution is more complex than such a summary of social and financial calculation might suggest. It would be a drearily didactic book were it not the case.

Instead, it is the inferiority of the plot – how much of it occurs in Anne’s head and is viewed from her often-limited perspective – that maintains our interest to the end. How Austen achieves this, while addressing both the insidious and beneficial impacts of the art of persuasion, deserves our attention. (from the Introduction by Todd Webb.