Persuasion: A Norton Critical Edition

About Jane AustenJessica Kulekjian

Jane Austen was born on December 16 1775 in Steventon Hampshire in England. Her father an Anglican clergyman encouraged her literary pursuits from a young age and by her mid-twenties Austen had drafted three novels. Following the success of Sense and Sensibility in 1811 she went on to publish Pride and Prejudice (1813) Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815). Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published posthumously in 1818. Despite her fondness for marriage plotsall six of her novels end in weddingsAusten never married living with her mother and sister in the years leading up to her death. She died on July 18 1817 in the city of Winchester. Over two centuries later Austens novels remain beloved classics and she is considered one of the foremost writers in English literary history. Rae Greiner is associate professor of English at Indiana University. She is the author of Sympathetic Realism in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction and the forthcoming Stupidity after Enlightenment. She is also coeditor of Victorian Studies.