Persuasion
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Summary
Editor's review
In literary terms, Persuasion displays Austen's consummate narrative skill and deep psychological insight. It lacks the lively balls and verbal duels of Pride and Prejudice, yet with a more delicate, restrained, and faintly elegiac touch it portrays the inner world and moral growth of a 'quiet' heroine. Anne's silence, observation, and endurance are not passivity but an inner strength and dignity under the constraints of a particular society. Austen's capture of social mobility in Regency England—especially how the emerging class of naval officers, representing the value of 'merit,' challenged the traditional landed gentry's value of 'birth'—gives the novel a depth of social observation beyond a love story.
This edition from Shanghai Translation Publishing House offers an accurate, fluent translation that preserves well Austen's distinctive style, in which subtle irony and delicate feeling intertwine. For readers, this may not be an Austen work that makes one laugh aloud, but it is one that leaves one thoughtful and lingering over its pages. Its themes—mature love, the wisdom of self-insistence and timely compromise, and how time can both wear away and fulfill feeling—keep it ever new.
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers who love Jane Austen's work and wish to savor the deeper style of her later years
- Lovers of classic literature who prefer restrained, psychologically rich, slowly paced fiction
- Readers interested in the social manners and shifting class structures of Regency England
- Readers who appreciate 'still waters run deep' emotional narrative and care about inner growth and moral choice
Not a good fit for
- Readers expecting the lively dialogue and dramatic conflict of Pride and Prejudice
- Readers seeking fast-paced, plot-driven entertainment
Reading tips
- Enter the text thinking about 'time' and 'choice,' and note the subtle shifts in Anne's eight-year inner journey
- Notice the imagery contrasting sea and land, movement and fixity, which hints at changing social values
- Read slowly to savor the subtle irony and emotional undercurrents beneath Austen's calm narration
About the publisher
Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 译本序
- 第一部
- 第一章
- 第二章
- 第三章
- 第四章
- 第五章
- 第六章
- 第七章
- 第八章
- 第九章
- 第十章
- 第十一章
- 第十二章
- 第二部
- 第一章
- 第二章
- 第三章
- 第四章
- 第五章
- 第六章
- 第七章
- 第八章
- 第九章
- 第十章
- 第十一章
- 第十二章
FAQ
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How does the heroine Anne differ from other Austen heroines?
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About the author
Jane Austen (1775–1817) was a British novelist, born into the family of a clergyman in Steventon, Hampshire, and she remained unmarried throughout her life. She wrote six novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey. With delicate irony she portrayed the marriages and daily life of the English gentry, and she is regarded as one of the most important writers in the history of the English novel. Her works are commonly classified under foreign literature, inspirational growth, and world classics, and they are widely read among Chinese readers; this library holds 88 editions of her works.
Qiu Yin is an author and translator about whom little public information is available; four works appear under this name, commonly classified as world classics and foreign literature. Judging from the existing titles, Qiu Yin's work is largely connected with the Chinese translation of English-language literature, with representative translations including Persuasion, Tales of the Jazz Age, and A Christmas Story Collection, the second of which appears more than once in the catalogue. In terms of subject matter, these works span the British classic novel and the modern American short story: the former is Jane Austen's writing on marriage and social manners, while the latter presents the glamour and disillusionment of Fitzgerald's 1920s, alongside a collection of short stories on the Christmas theme. Because biographical information is missing, details of education, career, and translation history cannot be confirmed. Any assessment should therefore start from the texts themselves: the translations serve the narrative, emphasizing plot momentum and the conveyance of characters' tones, so that works from different eras and countries remain readable in Chinese. These translations also offer Chinese readers a point of access to classics of English and American literature.
