In Our Time

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.

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In Our Time: Persuasion

22/12/2022

Persuasion

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Persuasion

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Austen's last complete novel, published after her death.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jane Austen's final completed novel: the story of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, their broken engagement and their chance meeting 8 years later.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jane Austen’s last complete novel, which was published just before Christmas in 1817, five months after her death.  It is the story of Anne Elliot, now 27 and (so we are told), losing her bloom, and of her feelings for Captain Wentworth who she was engaged to, 8 years before – an engagement she broke off under pressure from her father and godmother.  When Wentworth, by chance, comes back into Anne Elliot's life, he is still angry with her and neither she nor Austen's readers can know whether it is now too late for their thwarted love to have a second chance.

The image above is from a 1995 BBC adaptation of the novel, with Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds 

With

Karen O’Brien
Vice-Chancellor of Durham University

Fiona Stafford
Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford

And

Paddy Bullard
Associate Professor of English Literature and Book History at the University of Reading

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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