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