Jane Austen's last and most melancholy novel was published posthumously in 1818. In PERSUASION, Austen creates a strong, mature, and independent heroine, Anne Elliot. Having foolishly broken off an engagement eight years earlier to Frederick Wentworth, a penniless naval officer, Anne at the age of 27 has remained unmarried--and secretly devoted to Wentworth. Living with her vain, self-absorbed, and (of course) ridiculous father, Anne is sinking gently into a resigned spinsterhood when Wentworth, who has gained wealth and a name for himself, comes back into her life. Set in 1814 and 1815, PERSUASION was written in 1816, when Jane Austen was already ill; perhaps her decline left its mark on the novel. PERSUASION, however, while more serious in tone than Austen's other works--and, interestingly, more attuned to landscape and the beauties of nature--retains her gift for satire and her sometimes mordant wit. AUTHOR Jane Austen (16 December 1775 ? 18 July 1817) was an English novelist, whose realism, biting social commentary and masterly use of free indirect speech, burlesque, and irony have earned her a place as one of the most widely read and most beloved writers in English literature. Austen lived her entire life as part of a small and close-knit family located on the lower fringes of English gentry.[2] She was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as through her own reading. The steadfast support of her family was critical to Austen's development as a professional writer. Austen's artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years until she was about thirty-five years old. During this period, she experimented with various literary forms, including the epistolary novel which she tried and then abandoned, and wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began a fourth. During Austen's lifetime, because she chose to publish anonymously, her works brought her little personal fame and only a few positive reviews.