<p>Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel. She began it soon after she had finished Emma, completing it in August 1816. She died, aged 41, in 1817; Persuasion was published in December that year (but dated 1818).
Persuasion is connected with Northanger Abbey not only by the fact that the two books were originally bound up in one volume and published together two years later, but also because both stories are set partly in Bath, a fashionable city with which Jane Austen was well acquainted, having lived there from 1801 to 1805.
Besides the theme of persuasion, the novel evokes other topics, such as the Royal Navy. The significance here is that two brothers of Jane Austen used persuasion to later achieve the rank of admiral. As in Northanger Abbey, the superficial social life of Bath—well known to Jane Austen—is portrayed extensively, and serves as a background for the second volume. Persuasion marks a clear break with Austen's previous works, for the warm attitude of positive characters she usually portrays is in stark contrast to this novel's often dull heroine. Haughtiness and a lack of cordiality—of which Mr Darcy, in Pride and Prejudice is an extreme example—are</p>