Jane Austen is one of the most enduring and skilled English novelists. This volume contains two of her most famous stories: Persuasion and Northanger Abbey. Persuasion is a story of twenty-seven-year old Anne Elliot, Austen's most adult heroine. Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement when persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that such a match is unworthy. The breakup produces in Anne a deep and long-lasting regret Northanger Abbey is often referred to as Jane Austen's Gothic parody. Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers give the story an uncanny air, but one with a decidedly satirical twist.