Margaret Drabble

"Persuasion by Jane Austen. What does persuasion mean - a firm belief, or the action of persuading someone to think something else? Anne Elliot is one of Austen's quietest heroines, but also one of the strongest and the most open to change. She lives at the time of the Napoleonic wars, a time of accident, adventure, the making of new fortunes and alliances. A woman of no importance, she maneuvers in her restricted circumstances as her long-time love...

Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle's absence in Antigua, the Crawford's arrive in the neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation. Mansfield Park is considered Jane Austen's first mature work and, with its quiet heroine...

"These three short works from across Jane Austen's career show her writing in a variety of styles, from melodrama to satire, and exploring a range of classes and setting. The early epistolary novel Lady Susan depicts an unscrupulous coquette, toying with several men. The Watsons is a delightful fragment, whose spirited heroine finds her marriage opportunities restricted by poverty and pride. Written in the last months of Austen's life, the tantalizing...