At the B&N Reads blog, Cristina Merrill tagged
five classic romantic stories that still ring true today, including:
Persuasion, by Jane Austen
This novel, published in 1817, is the quintessential “the one that got away” tale. It follows my personal favorite story arc/plot line, that of which love once lost comes back, inciting hope for a second chance. Our heroine, Anne Elliot, is 27 years old and single. She was engaged once when she was 19, but broke things off with her fiancé, Frederick Wentworth, because a mother-like figure persuaded her that he wasn’t good enough. Anne and Frederick meet again when she is 27, which is young by today’s romance novel standards, but not so young in Austen’s time. They still love each other, and manage to overcome a good round of problems before they finally have their happy ending. The nicest thing about this book is that it’s about two adults; whereas Austen’s other books are more about young people falling in love, or young women falling in love with older men, Persuasion is about an adult man and an adult woman deciding what to do with the rest of their lives during a time in which not many people had such an option.
Read about
another entry on the list.
Persuasion is among
Melissa Albert's top fifteen male characters in Jane Austen's novels,
Yiyun Li's six favorite novels,
Joanna Trollope's six best books,
Paula Byrne's ten best Jane Austen characters,
Marjorie Kehe's list of ten perfect books for Valentine's Day gifts,
Howard Jacobson's 5 favorite literary heroines and
top ten novels of sexual jealousy, Elizabeth Buchan's
top ten books guaranteed to give comfort during the ending of a relationship, and appears on John Mullan's list of
ten of the best concerts in literature.
The Page 99 Test: Persuasion.
--Marshal Zeringue
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