Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel. She began it soon after she had finished Emma, completing it in August, 1816. She died, aged 41, in 1817; Persuasion was published in December of that year (but dated 1818). Persuasion is connected with Northanger Abbey not only by the fact that the two books were originally bound up in one volume and published together two years later, but also because both stories are set partly in Bath, a fashionable health resort with which Jane Austen was well acquainted, having lived there from 1801 to 1805.

《劝导》是作者最后一部小说，这部小说塑造了一位其笔下最为高尚的人物。韶光正从安妮的身上消逝，风华正茂的时候，因为接受了他人的"劝导"，她终与意中人温特沃斯上校分道扬镳。虽青春不再，又备受虚荣的父亲和姐姐的冷漠，但她的高贵仁慈却使她成为亲朋中最受欢迎的人。两人分手八年后再次相遇，上校不能冰释怨恨，违心追求他人；而安妮也险些接受伪君子堂兄的求婚。在因为家族事务而引发的一系列交往中，上校进一步发现安妮的无私与坚贞无人能比，而安妮也在一次次自我劝导中找回了爱的勇气。