Persuasion

By: Jane Austen

Narrated by: Jill Masters

Jane Austen was born in 1775 and died unmarried in her early forties. The daughter of a rector, she lived a comfortable upper middle-class life which was made eventful only be her active imagination.

In Persuasion, the book's heroine, Ann Elliot, was earlier engaged to Frederick Wentworth, a young navel officer, who now has become a captain. Anne is 27, and the early bloom of youth is past, when she and Captain Wentworth are thrown together again.

This book is often thought to be the story of Jane Austen's own lost love. In it, she seems mellowed and more philosophical, touched perhaps by the sentiment of a story in which she saw herself as the heroine but in whose happy outcome she has a premonition that she would never play a part.

Public Domain (P)1982 Jimcin Recordings

Almost great

This book is one of my favorites of all time, and definitely would make my top five desert island list. This performance is very very good, but the reader has some pronunciation problems. While Ms Masters' delivery is generally excellent and certainly consistent, her repeated mispronunciation of words like "ascertain" and the name "Benwick" seem out of place and is terribly annoying. Hopefully a little more research might be done before she tackles her next book.

Beware of dull narration with horrible background noise

Narration was not as bad but joy of going through another of Austen’s stories, this one believed to be somewhat of autobiography, was completely ruined by constant background noise in recording. There are much better versions and narrations than this one

A perfect story for these troubled times...

Loved the maturity of ANNE - a woman rather than a girl. I have read and listened to this wonderful book over many years.

Pure, unalloyed pleasure

“Persuasion” is my favorite novel of all time and Jill Masters my favorite reader of Jane Austen. There is some distracting background noise in a few spots but does not mar the utter pleasure of listening to this great masterpiece by a stellar reader.

Personal bias review!

This is my favorite of Jane Austen's six novels. I think it's because the passion is so English-ly understated throughout until the end where it veritably explodes off the page with first Anne's appeal to Captain Harville and culminating in Captain Wentworth's letter to Anne. (To receive a letter from the kind of quietly confident man that can carry off a line like "You pierce my soul" would be rather, shall we say, motivating.) One can easily commiserate with the desperation Anne feels to make sure she does not lose yet another chance with him. I rather like to think Miss Austen was relieved as well when Anne caught him. Perhaps it's only because my own interpretation of intonation differs from the author's that I find her narration a bit off the mark. I felt as though Ms. Masters missed the whole point of persuasion as a theme.