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This Norton Critical Edition includes:
- The first edition text of the novel (dated 1818, but likely issued in late 1817), accompanied by Rae Greiner's revised and expanded explanatory footnotes.
- The two canceled chapters that compose the original ending of Persuasion.
- A rich selection of background material-all but one item new to the Third Edition-centering on the British navy, slavery, and colonialism as well as Persuasion's initial reception.
- Fourteen critical essays-all new to the Third Edition-centering on the novel's major themes.
- A chronology of Austen's life and work and a selected bibliography.
About the author
Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in Steventon, Hampshire, in England. Her father, an Anglican clergyman, encouraged her literary pursuits from a young age and by her mid-twenties, Austen had drafted three novels. Following the success of Sense and Sensibility in 1811, she went on to publish Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1815). Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published posthumously in 1818. Despite her fondness for marriage plots–all six of her novels end in weddings–Austen never married, living with her mother and sister in the years leading up to her death. She died on July 18, 1817, in the city of Winchester. Over two centuries later, Austen’s novels remain beloved classics, and she is considered one of the foremost writers in English literary history.Rae Greiner is associate professor of English at Indiana University. She is the author of Sympathetic Realism in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction and the forthcoming Stupidity after Enlightenment. She is also coeditor of Victorian Studies.
