Persuasion

Anne Elliot is the overlooked middle daughter of Sir Walter, a baronet who is too conscious of his good looks and rank, and spends excessive amounts of money. Anne's mother, a fine, sensible woman, is long dead. Anne's elder sister, Elizabeth, resembles her father in temperament. Anne's younger sister, Mary, is a nervous, clinging woman who has made an unspectacular marriage. None of her surviving family can provide much companionship for the elegant-minded Anne, who, still unmarried at 27, seems destined for spinsterhood. After she met and fell in love with Wentworth, at age nineteen, Anne had been persuaded to break the engagement. Wentworth re-enters Anne's life when Sir Walter is forced to let the family estate to Wentworth's brother-in-law, Admiral Croft. Wentworth's successes in the Napoleonic Wars resulted in his promotion and enabled him to amass the then considerable fortune of £25,000 from prize money awarded for capturing enemy vessels.