Persuasion in 'Persuasion' Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lady Russell

This particular instance of persuasion is the event that gave Jane Austen's final completed novel its title. However, as Austen died six months before the publication of 'Persuasion', the title was actually the work of Jane's older brother, Henry. While it is known that Austen referred to her novel under the working title of 'The Elliots', there is no surviving evidence to suggest what she actually intended it to be called when published.

Lady Russell chose to persuade the then 19-year-old Anne to give up on marrying the love of her life because Captain Wentworth was poor, unconnected to the nobility and she disliked his confident nature. While Anne was able to withstand the disapproval of her father and elder sister and even the threat of being disinherited, she succumbed to the gentle and steady persuasion of a woman who she looked up to as a mother.

Answer: Mr Shepherd

Mr Shepherd was a lawyer and acted as Sir Walter Elliot's agent. Therefore, he had the unenviable task of getting his employer (and friend) to accept that he could no longer afford to live a life of luxury in his ancestral home. When Lady Russell's attempt to persuade Sir Walter to economise failed, Mr Shepherd stepped in to promote the idea of Kellynch Hall being rented out in order to reduce his outgoings while simultaneously raising money to repay his debts.

Admiral Croft was the first person to show an interest in renting Kellynch. Mr Shepherd was able to persuade Sir Walter to accept his offer by promoting the idea that, in general, naval officers made good tenants and that, in particular, Admiral Croft was a rich, married gentleman who had no children who might damage the property!

Answer: Mary Musgrove

Mary Musgrove was the youngest of Sir Walter Elliot's three daughters and, for the majority of the novel, the only one who was married. She was also a thoroughly silly woman who had an inflated sense of her own importance (referred to as "the Elliot pride") and was a hopeless hypochondriac.

When Sir Walter Elliot packed up and left Kellynch Hall to live in Bath - a city that her sister Anne hated - Mary invited Anne to come and stay with her in the nearby village of Uppercross. However, she didn't do this out of consideration of her sister's feelings - she simply wanted to obtain some help with her children and a sympathetic ear to listen to her (mostly imaginary) complaints.

Answer: Louisa Musgrove

It was Louisa Musgrove who vehemently defended her elder sister's plans to visit the Hayter family at Winthrop. The "nonsense" in question was the opinion of her sister-in-law, Mary Musgrove, that the Hayters - who were the Musgroves' close, but significantly poorer, relations - were beneath the family's notice.

Louisa's strongly voiced statement was made to Captain Wentworth and illustrated to him the difference in character between Louisa and Anne Elliot. He thought of the former as a potential marriage candidate because she openly showed great strength of opinion and determination, while he had resolved to despise the latter because he felt she had showed a lack of these important characteristics when she was persuaded to break their engagement.

Answer: Captain Benwick

Captain Benwick had been engaged to marry Captain Harville's sister, Fanny, and was left heartbroken after he returned to England to discover that she had died before their wedding could take place. He was described by Austen as a shy man "with quiet, serious, and retiring manners, and a decided taste for reading" whose grief had led him to read copious amounts of poetry "which imaged a broken heart, or a mind destroyed by wretchedness". Anne Elliot's quiet and kind nature led her to gently persuade him of the merits of other, more uplifting, reading material.

Anne's attempts to coax him out of his grief were evidently successful when his heart recovered enough to allow him to become engaged to Louisa Musgrove - somewhat to the distress of his friend (and would-be brother-in-law) Captain Harville.

Answer: Captain Wentworth

The amount of time that Captain Wentworth spent with Louisa Musgrove during his stay at Kellynch had two significant effects - firstly, it generated the widespread expectation that they would soon be engaged and, secondly, it gave her the opportunity for her to become accustomed to him helping her to jump down from stiles they encountered while out walking together. These issues came together during the group's visit to Lyme in Dorset. Louisa insisted on being jumped down the stone steps of the Cobb (the harbour wall), fell and was knocked unconscious when she hit her head. The events that followed led Captain Wentworth to discover that he was considered honour-bound to marry her. Unfortunately, he had just realised that he was still in love with Anne Elliot.

Needless to say, he was later relieved to discover that she was wanted to marry Captain Benwick instead and that he was free to pursue Anne.

Answer: Sir Walter Elliot

Sir Walter Elliot was a vain, proud and selfish man who placed an enormous amount of importance on a person's physical appearance rather than their character or skills. He seriously considered refusing to allow Admiral Croft to rent his house on the basis that he might have a weather-beaten complexion and regularly derided women's appearances. The only attribute that he held above beauty in importance was social rank - he was excessively proud of being a Baronet and obsequious in his attentions to his titled cousin, the Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple.

Gowland was a skin lotion popular in the latter part of the 18th century but discredited as dangerous by the time Jane Austen wrote 'Persuasion'. Although it was said to "improve" blemishes (presumably why Sir Walter promoted it), it did so by causing the top layer of the skin to peel off.

Answer: Mr Elliot

Mr William Elliot was Anne Elliot's cousin and the heir to both her father's baronetcy and Kellynch Hall. He first saw and admired Anne during her visit to Lyme, but was, at the time, unaware of her identity. After being introduced to each other at her father's house in Bath, he began paying her a significant amount of attention and gained Lady Russell's support for a marriage that would result in Anne eventually succeeding her mother as Lady Elliot and mistress of Kellynch. However, Mr Elliot's attentions were ill-timed from Anne's point of view as they often separated her from Captain Wentworth.

Wentworth also saw the theoretical benefits of a match between Anne and her cousin and as a result succumbed to a fit of jealousy.

Answer: Mrs Smith

Mrs Smith (formerly Miss Hamilton) was an old schoolfriend of Anne's who had fallen on hard times after the death of her husband and was living in poverty and poor health in an unfashionable area of Bath. Anne visited her regularly during her time in Bath, despite her father's horror at his daughter daring to be friends with someone socially beneath her.

Eventually it turned out that Mrs Smith and her husband had been close friends of Mr Elliot during his period of estrangement from the family. After hearing the rumours about Anne and Mr Elliot's likely engagement, she sought to gain her friend's influence with her cousin to help her regain some lost property of her husband's that would allow her to improve her situation and live in relative comfort. After Anne convinced her that she had no intention of marrying Mr Elliot, Mrs Smith was able to reveal the truth about his poor character and mercenary nature.

Answer: Elizabeth Elliot

Elizabeth Elliot, the eldest of Sir Walter's daughters, was also the most like him in appearance and character. She was a cold and proud woman who barely cared about her younger sisters and whose main focus in life was on obtaining a suitable husband - i.e. one who was wealthy and titled. However, at the time of the events of 'Persuasion' she was nearly 30 years old, unmarried and definitely on the shelf by Regency standards.

Elizabeth had also been the mistress of Kellynch Hall since the early death of her mother. While she often bragged about the grandeur of the townhouse the Elliots were renting in Bath, she was very aware of the loss of status the family had suffered when they forced to leave Kellynch because of her father's debts. The idea of the Musgrove family coming to dinner and witnessing how much smaller the affair would have been compared to their former habits at Kellynch was too much for her - instead she had to persuade herself of a good excuse as to why they wouldn't have expected an invitation in the first place.