Persuasion
Title
Persuasion
Text Read
Persuasion
Author
Austen, Jane
Original Source
London: Murray, 1818. Northanger Abbey; and, Persuasion. Vol. III-IV
Digitized by
Internet Archive
Publication Date
1818
Date(s) of Reading
- 1857-03-[?]
- 1874-09-[?]
Evidence
1857-03-[?]: Recollections of the Scilly Isles, 1857. “Our readings aloud were Cromwell's Letters, Aurora Leigh (for the 2d time), Life of Charlotte Bronte, Maury's Physical Geography of the Sea, 912 Twelfth Night and Macbeth, and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. I read the Œdipus Tyrannus and the Œdipus Coloneus, De Quincey's Glories of Stage Coach Travelling and Revolt of the Tartars, and the greater part of Shelley's poems.” GEL 2: 358
1874-09-[?]: George Eliot to John Blackwood, Earlswood Common, 8 August 1874. "As to confidence in the work to be done I am somewhat in the condition suggested to Armgart, ‘How will you bear the poise of eminence, With dread of falling?’ And the other day, having a bad headache, I did what I have sometimes done before at intervals of five or six years -- looked into three or four novels to see what the world was reading. The effect was paralyzing, and certainly justifies me in that abstinence from novel-reading which, I fear, makes me seem supercilious or churlish to the many persons who send me their books or ask me about their friends' books." GEL 6: 75-6. "[George Henry Lewes]'s Diary shows that they read aloud Jane Austen's Mansfield Park in June and July 1874 and some of Trollope's The Way We Live Now, which was appearing in monthly parts. In September they were reading Persuasion aloud." GEL 6: 139f
1874-09-[?]: George Eliot to John Blackwood, Earlswood Common, 8 August 1874. "As to confidence in the work to be done I am somewhat in the condition suggested to Armgart, ‘How will you bear the poise of eminence, With dread of falling?’ And the other day, having a bad headache, I did what I have sometimes done before at intervals of five or six years -- looked into three or four novels to see what the world was reading. The effect was paralyzing, and certainly justifies me in that abstinence from novel-reading which, I fear, makes me seem supercilious or churlish to the many persons who send me their books or ask me about their friends' books." GEL 6: 75-6. "[George Henry Lewes]'s Diary shows that they read aloud Jane Austen's Mansfield Park in June and July 1874 and some of Trollope's The Way We Live Now, which was appearing in monthly parts. In September they were reading Persuasion aloud." GEL 6: 139f
Citation
Austen, Jane, Persuasion, George Eliot's Reading, George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/57600