50 Fun Facts About Persuasion (Jane Austen)

In Jane Austen's Persuasion, which godmother talked Anne Elliot out of marrying the penniless young Wentworth?

Lady Russell meant it kindly, since Wentworth then had no fortune and uncertain prospects. Once he returns rich and the pair reunite, she admits she was wrong.

To cut his debts, Sir Walter Elliot moves his household in Persuasion to which fashionable English resort?

Bath lets Sir Walter keep up appearances at less expense than his country estate. Anne dreads the move, while her father and elder sister look forward to it.

Louisa Musgrove is knocked senseless in Persuasion after jumping from the harbour wall of which Dorset seaside town?

Lyme Regis still draws readers to the Cobb, the old stone wall where she fell. The poet Tennyson is said to have asked to be shown the exact spot as soon as he arrived.

Persuasion was published after Jane Austen's death in a four-volume set with which other novel of hers?

Northanger Abbey and Persuasion came out together in December 1817, though the title page is dated 1818. Her family arranged the set in the months after she died.

Which American actress played Anne Elliot, often speaking straight to camera, in the 2022 film of Persuasion?

Dakota Johnson starred opposite Cosmo Jarvis as Wentworth. Variety likened the film's asides to the audience to the TV comedy Fleabag.

The Penguin Classics introduction to Persuasion likens overlooked Anne Elliot's story to which fairy tale?

Cinderella fits because Anne is unappreciated and put upon by her own family, while the hero at first seems drawn to showier women. The happy ending duly follows.

Which novelist borrowed from Persuasion for her Bridget Jones sequel The Edge of Reason?

Helen Fielding had already based the first Bridget Jones book on Pride and Prejudice. In the sequel, a rival's dive into a shallow river echoes Louisa Musgrove's fall.

In which 2006 film do lovers writing across a two-year time gap bond over a copy of Persuasion?

The Lake House stars Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock as the pair, who swap letters through a mailbox. He tracks down the copy of Austen's novel she left at a train station.

Anne Elliot of Persuasion holds which distinction among the heroines of Jane Austen's six novels?

The oldest of Austen's heroines, Anne is 27 when the story begins, with her broken engagement more than seven years behind her.

Persuasion's naval officers are back ashore because which long European conflict has just ended?

The Napoleonic Wars being over is what lets Admiral Croft settle in the country, and it brings his wife's brother, Captain Wentworth, back into Anne's life.

Sir Walter Elliot must rent out which ancestral estate at the start of Jane Austen's Persuasion?

Kellynch Hall goes to a naval couple, the Crofts, and Anne privately concludes that they deserve the house more than her own family does.

Louisa Musgrove surprises everyone in Persuasion by getting engaged to which grieving, poetry-loving naval officer?

Captain Benwick had been mourning his dead fiancée, Fanny Harville, when he helped nurse Louisa after her accident by sitting and reading to her.

How did Captain Wentworth of Persuasion grow rich in the years after Anne Elliot broke their engagement?

Prize money was the Navy's reward for capturing enemy vessels, and it brought Wentworth about £25,000. Sir Walter looks down on officers who rise this way.

Which widowed school friend, now poor and ill, exposes William Elliot's true character to Anne in Persuasion?

Mrs Smith reveals that he led her late husband into debt and then, as executor of the will, did nothing to help her. Wentworth later helps her recover her property.

Which widowed daughter of Sir Walter's lawyer ends Persuasion as William Elliot's mistress in London?

Mrs Clay had been angling to marry Sir Walter himself, a match that might have produced a son and cost William his position as heir.

In Persuasion's climax, Wentworth overhears Anne Elliot arguing with Captain Harville over which sex is more what?

Faithful in love is Anne's claim for women, who she says go on loving longest when hope is gone. Wentworth, listening across the room, answers her in writing.

Captain Wentworth's letter to Anne Elliot in Persuasion pairs hope with which other feeling to describe his state?

Agony and hope are the two halves of the best-known line in the book, written while Anne is in the same room. He adds that he has loved no one but her.

What is the first name of Captain Wentworth, the hero of Jane Austen's Persuasion?

Frederick Wentworth's rise is thought to echo that of Austen's sailor sibling Charles, who also commanded a sloop young and moved up to frigates.

Admiral Croft of Persuasion is said to have fought in which great sea battle before serving in the East Indies?

Trafalgar, fought in 1805, gives the admiral a heroic record, yet Sir Walter still grumbles that life at sea spoils a man's complexion.

In Persuasion, Anne Elliot and a grieving young officer compare the poems of Walter Scott with those of whom?

Lord Byron and Scott are the officer's favourites, and Anne gently suggests that so much passionate verse is risky reading for a man in mourning.

Anne Elliot spends the autumn with her sister Mary at which village, the Musgrove family's home in Persuasion?

Uppercross is only three miles from Anne's old home, yet there she is liked and needed as she never is by her own father. It is also where Wentworth walks back into her life.

In Persuasion, Anne Elliot's young nephew suffers which injury on the day she was first due to meet Wentworth again?

A dislocated collarbone, from a bad fall, gives Anne a reason to stay behind and nurse the boy while his parents go to dine with the captain.

After renting Sir Walter Elliot's home in Persuasion, Admiral Croft clears what out of the dressing room?

Large mirrors, or looking-glasses, lined Sir Walter's dressing room, and the plain-spoken admiral says there was no getting away from oneself.

On a walk in Persuasion, Captain Wentworth uses what object to praise firmness of character to Louisa Musgrove?

A hazelnut pulled from a bough, still glossy and whole after the autumn storms, is his picture of a firm mind. Anne overhears it all from the other side of a hedgerow.

At a concert in Persuasion, Anne Elliot translates the words of a song from which language for her cousin?

Italian is a language Anne modestly claims to know poorly, even as she turns the song into clear English at sight. Her cousin seizes the chance to flatter her.

Sir Walter Elliot of Persuasion reads only which book, where he can admire the entry for his own family?

The Baronetage, a directory of the country's titled families, opens the novel in Sir Walter's hands. He has even improved the printed entry with handwritten additions.

Sir Walter Elliot's country seat in Persuasion lies in which county of south-west England?

Somerset, or Somersetshire as the opening line has it, puts the family seat only fifty miles from the resort where they retreat to economise.

Charles Hayter, the cousin Henrietta Musgrove is to marry in Persuasion, follows which profession?

Clergyman by profession, he is only a country curate, which is why snobbish Mary thinks him no match for a Musgrove daughter.

While the Musgrove sisters dance with Captain Wentworth in Persuasion, how does Anne Elliot usually spend the evening?

Playing the music for the dancers suits Anne, who prefers the keyboard to being noticed. Her eyes sometimes fill with tears as she plays.

After their first meeting in years, Captain Wentworth of Persuasion says Anne Elliot is so what that he hardly knew her?

Altered is the word her sister Mary tactlessly passes on, and it stings. By the end he is telling Anne that to his eye she could never change.

Who gave Persuasion its title after the author's death left the novel unnamed?

Henry Austen, her brother, chose it when he saw the book into print. Family tradition says she herself had been calling it The Elliots.

Jane Austen wrote Persuasion while living in which Hampshire village, now the site of a museum in her cottage?

Chawton was her home for the last eight years of her life, in a cottage on her brother Edward's estate. Mansfield Park and Emma were written there too.

After finishing Persuasion, Jane Austen began which other novel that she left unfinished at her death?

Sanditon was begun in January 1817 under the working title The Brothers, but she stopped that March, probably because of her illness.

Jane Austen finished Persuasion about a year before she died in which English cathedral city?

Winchester is where her family took her for medical treatment in May 1817. She died there that July, aged 41, and is buried in the cathedral.

Which Irish actor played Captain Wentworth opposite Amanda Root in the 1995 film of Persuasion?

Ciarán Hinds played him in a BBC production that was shown on British television first, then released in American cinemas as Hollywood noticed Austen's rising popularity.

Which English actress played Anne Elliot opposite Rupert Penry-Jones in the 2007 television film of Persuasion?

Sally Hawkins speaks Anne's private feelings through a diary, a device the screenwriter invented so viewers could follow so reserved a heroine.

The 2007 film of Persuasion was one of three adaptations made for which British broadcaster's Jane Austen Season?

ITV ordered new versions of three Austen novels at once and gave each to a different company, cast and director so that every film would have a distinct look.

Which streaming service released the 2022 film of Persuasion, a week after a brief run in American cinemas?

Netflix released it in July 2022, with Henry Golding as the scheming cousin William Elliot and Richard E. Grant as the vain Sir Walter.

For a lived-in look, the director of the 1995 film of Persuasion discouraged the cast from wearing what?

Make-up was out because the director wanted none of the polished, artificial feel of other period dramas. The worn-looking costumes won their designer a BAFTA.

Which London publisher, who had already issued Emma, brought out Persuasion at the end of 1817?

John Murray was the better-known London firm she had moved to in 1815. The Austen family kept the copyright of the 1,750 copies, which sold quickly.

Unhappy with her first draft of Persuasion, Jane Austen rewrote which part of the novel in the summer of 1816?

The final two chapters were finished again on 6 August 1816. Her cancelled first version survives in her own handwriting, so the two endings can be compared.

Persuasion showcases which narrative technique, which Jane Austen was the first English novelist to use extensively?

Free indirect speech lets the narrator slip into a character's thoughts while keeping control of the telling, so much of the story reaches us through Anne's own mind.

Scholar Gary Kelly reads the vain, debt-ridden Sir Walter Elliot of Persuasion as a stand-in for which royal?

The Prince Regent was infamous for gambling, drinking and unpaid debts, and Austen deeply disapproved of him.

Sir Walter Elliot of Persuasion recommends the constant use of which skin lotion during the spring months?

Gowland's lotion gets Sir Walter's credit for clearing a family friend's freckles, and he is surprised to hear that Anne's improved looks owe nothing to it.

Which director made the 1995 film of Persuasion as his first feature before going on to Notting Hill?

Roger Michell came to it from theatre and television serials, and the film won the BAFTA for Best Single Drama. Richard Curtis then sought him out for his romantic comedy script.

Captain Wentworth's first command in Persuasion, a worn-out sloop he took to the West Indies, had which name?

The Asp was old and hardly fit for service, yet he remembers her fondly. His real fortune came later, aboard the frigate Laconia.

Captain Wentworth writes his letter to Anne Elliot in Persuasion at which inn, where the Musgroves are staying?

The White Hart is where he writes at a table while Anne talks nearby, then comes back on the excuse of forgotten gloves to lay the letter in front of her.

When rain catches Anne Elliot in a shop in Persuasion, Captain Wentworth offers her the use of his new what?

Umbrella in hand, he jokes that he has already equipped himself for the local weather. Anne has to decline, because she is waiting for her cousin to walk her home.

After leaving their country seat in Persuasion, Sir Walter and Elizabeth Elliot settle at which smart address?

Camden Place sits high above the town, a lofty and dignified spot that suits Sir Walter's idea of a man of consequence. His titled cousins take Laura Place.

Admiral and Mrs Croft are known around the neighbourhood in Persuasion for their erratic driving of what vehicle?

A gig is the light carriage the couple share, and Mrs Croft calmly corrects the reins to keep them out of ruts. Anne sees their driving as a picture of their marriage.