Persuasion

By: Jane Austen

Narrated by: Jill Masters

Jane Austen was born in 1775 and died unmarried in her early forties. The daughter of a rector, she lived a comfortable upper middle-class life which was made eventful only be her active imagination.

In Persuasion, the book's heroine, Ann Elliot, was earlier engaged to Frederick Wentworth, a young navel officer, who now has become a captain. Anne is 27, and the early bloom of youth is past, when she and Captain Wentworth are thrown together again.

This book is often thought to be the story of Jane Austen's own lost love. In it, she seems mellowed and more philosophical, touched perhaps by the sentiment of a story in which she saw herself as the heroine but in whose happy outcome she has a premonition that she would never play a part.

Public Domain (P)1982 Jimcin Recordings

Beware of dull narration with horrible background noise

Narration was not as bad but joy of going through another of Austen’s stories, this one believed to be somewhat of autobiography, was completely ruined by constant background noise in recording. There are much better versions and narrations than this one

Pure, unalloyed pleasure

“Persuasion” is my favorite novel of all time and Jill Masters my favorite reader of Jane Austen. There is some distracting background noise in a few spots but does not mar the utter pleasure of listening to this great masterpiece by a stellar reader.

Almost great

This book is one of my favorites of all time, and definitely would make my top five desert island list. This performance is very very good, but the reader has some pronunciation problems. While Ms Masters' delivery is generally excellent and certainly consistent, her repeated mispronunciation of words like "ascertain" and the name "Benwick" seem out of place and is terribly annoying. Hopefully a little more research might be done before she tackles her next book.

Disappointed

I enjoyed reading Persuasion but a different narrator will do this audio version justice. I fell asleep no less than three times listening. She made this book sooo boring.

Personal bias review!

This is my favorite of Jane Austen's six novels. I think it's because the passion is so English-ly understated throughout until the end where it veritably explodes off the page with first Anne's appeal to Captain Harville and culminating in Captain Wentworth's letter to Anne. (To receive a letter from the kind of quietly confident man that can carry off a line like "You pierce my soul" would be rather, shall we say, motivating.) One can easily commiserate with the desperation Anne feels to make sure she does not lose yet another chance with him. I rather like to think Miss Austen was relieved as well when Anne caught him. Perhaps it's only because my own interpretation of intonation differs from the author's that I find her narration a bit off the mark. I felt as though Ms. Masters missed the whole point of persuasion as a theme.

You can hear talking in the background

This is a poor recording. You can hear people talking in the background and the narration is not my favorite.

Worst audio performance I've ever had in a book

There was noise in audible background in the performance and there was a change in volume up and down it was really, really awful. If the booking been wonderful it would've been intolerable.

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For everyone woman of eight and twenty

The first time I attempted Persuasion I was left wanting. The book fell to the wayside and was not picked up again for two years. This time--with the assistance of Jill Masters charming narration--I not only finished the story, but fell in love. Perhaps this is the perfect example a book finding you at the right time in your life. I was 26 when I first attempted the story and at 28 I fully understood the brain of Anne Elliot. While I might not have acted as she did--I tend to be less easily persuaded--I admired and understood her every decision. Jane never really lets me down.

The performance...

I didn’t think it was possible to ruin anything Jane Austen wrote. I was wrong. This reading was really bad. If I’m giving the benefit of the doubt, I would hope that this is just an early recording of the book (perhaps when audiobooks were newly conceived, and the production crew and reader hadn’t quite worked out all the kinks yet). I can’t think of any other excuse for such a bad performance of this book. This is actually my favorite of Austen’s work, and the fact that I couldn’t make it through two chapters speaks volumes.