Jane Austen (1775-1817) was extremely modest about her own genius but has become one of English literature's most famous women writers. She is the author of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey. Gillian Beer is King Edward Professor of English at the University of Cambridge and President of Clare Hall.
Critics, especially [recently], value <i>Persuasion</i> highly, as the author's 'most deeply felt fiction, ' 'the novel which in the end the experienced reader of Jane Austen puts at the head of the list.' . . . Anne wins back Wentworth and wins over the reader; we may, like him, end up thinking Anne's character 'perfection itself.' -from the Introduction by Judith Terry