I read (listened to) this because the protagonist in Andrea Gillies' The Enlightenment of Nina Findley recommends it and says that it's Austen's best. I'm not entirely sure that I agree, on the other hand, it's years ago since I read another Austen. This one was only published after her death.

I liked it and the themes of gossip and expectations of women are interesting and recognisable, but I wasn't at all as taken with it as I was with Middlemarch, another English classic that I read last year. I found that Middlemarch had substantially more to say to a modern reader than Persuasion. But that could just be me.