Before You Begin

Before you begin.

Anne Elliot was persuaded, at nineteen, to give up the man she loved. Eight years later, Captain Wentworth returns to her circle with a fortune, a naval career, and every reason to believe she has forgotten him. Anne has not. In the rooms and shore towns of Austen's England, every civility carries the weight of what neither of them has said.

Jane Austen's last completed novel is a quiet study of time, judgment, and the cost of letting other people decide what is best. Its wit is gentle but exact: family vanity, social rank, and the security of money shape the choices around Anne, while the Royal Navy brings new fortunes and new claims into an old neighbourhood.

This edition opens with an illustrated guide to the people and places that shape Anne's story. Meet the Elliot family, the Musgroves, and the naval friends who gather around them before you enter Kellynch Hall and follow the novel's path from Somerset to Lyme and Bath.