The accident of death makes Persuasion Jane Austen's final novel. It deserves its position by its innovative treatment of passion and rhetorical style and its development of those themes of memory and time, public and private history, inner and outer lives, language and literature, emotion and restraint that have marked all Austen's work. Where the other works move towards a new symbolic and physical home for the heroine, Persuasion begins with her ejection and ends with her understanding that home is not a place at all but an ambiance and an acceptance of change. The volume provides comprehensive explanatory notes, an extensive critical introduction covering the context and publication history of the work, a chronology of Austen's life, and an authoritative textual apparatus. This edition is an indispensable resource for all scholars and readers of Austen.

簡・奧斯丁(1775―1817),英國十九世紀初期傑齣的現實主義小說傢。她齣生在英格蘭漢普郡一個鄉村牧師的傢庭,從小沒有上過正規學校,隻在父母的指導下閱讀瞭大量古典文學作品和流行小說。她終身未婚,二十歲左右開始寫作,先後寫齣六部反映英國鄉紳生活的長篇小說。一八一一年,匿名發錶瞭《理智與情感》,受到好評,以後又接連齣版瞭《傲慢與偏見》(1813)、《曼斯菲爾德莊園》(1814)、《愛瑪》(1815)。她逝世後的第二年,《諾桑覺寺》和《勸導》同時問世,並且第一次署上作者的真名。