In Our Time: Persuasion

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 27-year-old Anne Elliot, now apparently losing her bloom and of her feelings for Captain Wentworth who she was once engaged to, prior to breaking off her plans under pressure from her father and godmother. When Wentworth, by chance, comes back into Anne'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