"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever." Anne Elliot is persuaded to reject a marriage proposal from handsome Captain Wentworth because he lacks rank or fortune. But when he returns home from the Navy, more than seven years later, Anne realises she still has strong feelings for him, despite the fact that his attentions have now turned towards her friend.Moving, tender and intrinsically "Austen" in style, with its satirical portrayal of society in eighteenth-century England, Persuasion is a story of heartache and missed opportunities, and a celebration of enduring love and hope.