By Jane Austen

Persuasion:

Being seen to be left on the shelf at the advanced and spinsterish age of twenty-seven was something Jane Austen knew about only too well. In Persuasion she uses the dry yet merry voice of Anne Eliot, the heroine and one of the most popular female characters in English literature, to tell this story about the ridiculous sport of trying to find a decent husband.

Jane Austen wrote the novel when she was forty and actually thoroughly happy with her position on the shelf, and her confidently funny take on life as an unmarried woman and the daftness of the level of worry that a girl has to go through before eventually finding the ideal match shines through this glorious book.

Olivia Williams’ calmly witty reading for silksoundbooks of Anne’s expedition through the beautiful but vicious salons of eighteenth century British society is a wicked joy. This is Austen at her best; funny, warm, sharp and ultimately powerful in her description of how to survive the persuasions of those around us who think they know what it is to be successful.