Pride and Prejudice... Or Persuasion?

Don't worry - this won't be one of my famous speeches about why Jane Austen is one of my most-admired writers, why Keira Knightley should have never been allowed to star in the movie remake of Pride and Prejudice, or why Darcy Fitzwilliam is the perfect man.

I will even spare you the funny details of what happened when I visited Austen's last home in Chawton, England.

What I do want to say is... Although P&P is one of the greatest books ever written - and the basis for one of the juiciest made-for-television movies ever made -  Persuasion remains my sentimental favourite. Just thinking about Wentworth's last letter gives me the shivers:

I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. 

Brrrrrr!!

If you want to make an argument for your favourite Jane Austen novel/heroine/hero, make it.