Persuasion (Jane Austen)
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50 free Persuasion (Jane Austen) trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel and, for many readers, her most moving. Anne Elliot gave up the man she loved on the advice of someone she trusted, and has lived with that choice ever since. When Captain Wentworth comes back into her neighbourhood, successful and still unmarried, the story asks whether a second chance is possible. This quiz covers the whole book: the Elliot family and their debts, the Musgroves and the naval officers, the seaside accident that changes everything, and the letter that settles it. There are also questions on how the novel was written and published, and on its film and television versions. It is written for book clubs, students and anyone who has just finished the novel or one of its adaptations. The questions run from gentle to demanding, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Jane Austen's Persuasion, which godmother talked Anne Elliot out of marrying the penniless young Wentworth?
Lady Russell
Lady Russell meant it kindly, since Wentworth then had no fortune and uncertain prospects. Once he returns rich and the pair reunite, she admits she was wrong.
Q 02To cut his debts, Sir Walter Elliot moves his household in Persuasion to which fashionable English resort?
Bath
Bath lets Sir Walter keep up appearances at less expense than his country estate. Anne dreads the move, while her father and elder sister look forward to it.
Q 03Louisa Musgrove is knocked senseless in Persuasion after jumping from the harbour wall of which Dorset seaside town?
Lyme Regis
Lyme Regis still draws readers to the Cobb, the old stone wall where she fell. The poet Tennyson is said to have asked to be shown the exact spot as soon as he arrived.
Q 04Persuasion was published after Jane Austen's death in a four-volume set with which other novel of hers?
Northanger Abbey
Northanger Abbey and Persuasion came out together in December 1817, though the title page is dated 1818. Her family arranged the set in the months after she died.
Q 05Which American actress played Anne Elliot, often speaking straight to camera, in the 2022 film of Persuasion?
Dakota Johnson
Dakota Johnson starred opposite Cosmo Jarvis as Wentworth. Variety likened the film's asides to the audience to the TV comedy Fleabag.
Q 06The Penguin Classics introduction to Persuasion likens overlooked Anne Elliot's story to which fairy tale?
Cinderella
Cinderella fits because Anne is unappreciated and put upon by her own family, while the hero at first seems drawn to showier women. The happy ending duly follows.
Q 07Which novelist borrowed from Persuasion for her Bridget Jones sequel The Edge of Reason?
Helen Fielding
Helen Fielding had already based the first Bridget Jones book on Pride and Prejudice. In the sequel, a rival's dive into a shallow river echoes Louisa Musgrove's fall.
Q 08In which 2006 film do lovers writing across a two-year time gap bond over a copy of Persuasion?
The Lake House
The Lake House stars Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock as the pair, who swap letters through a mailbox. He tracks down the copy of Austen's novel she left at a train station.
Q 09Anne Elliot of Persuasion holds which distinction among the heroines of Jane Austen's six novels?
The oldest
The oldest of Austen's heroines, Anne is 27 when the story begins, with her broken engagement more than seven years behind her.
Q 10Persuasion's naval officers are back ashore because which long European conflict has just ended?
The Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars being over is what lets Admiral Croft settle in the country, and it brings his wife's brother, Captain Wentworth, back into Anne's life.
Q 11Sir Walter Elliot must rent out which ancestral estate at the start of Jane Austen's Persuasion?
Kellynch Hall
Kellynch Hall goes to a naval couple, the Crofts, and Anne privately concludes that they deserve the house more than her own family does.
Q 12Louisa Musgrove surprises everyone in Persuasion by getting engaged to which grieving, poetry-loving naval officer?
Captain Benwick
Captain Benwick had been mourning his dead fiancée, Fanny Harville, when he helped nurse Louisa after her accident by sitting and reading to her.
Q 13How did Captain Wentworth of Persuasion grow rich in the years after Anne Elliot broke their engagement?
Prize money
Q 21Anne Elliot spends the autumn with her sister Mary at which village, the Musgrove family's home in Persuasion?
Uppercross
Uppercross is only three miles from Anne's old home, yet there she is liked and needed as she never is by her own father. It is also where Wentworth walks back into her life.
Q 22In Persuasion, Anne Elliot's young nephew suffers which injury on the day she was first due to meet Wentworth again?
A dislocated collarbone
A dislocated collarbone, from a bad fall, gives Anne a reason to stay behind and nurse the boy while his parents go to dine with the captain.
Q 23After renting Sir Walter Elliot's home in Persuasion, Admiral Croft clears what out of the dressing room?
Large mirrors
Prize money was the Navy's reward for capturing enemy vessels, and it brought Wentworth about £25,000. Sir Walter looks down on officers who rise this way.
Q 14Which widowed school friend, now poor and ill, exposes William Elliot's true character to Anne in Persuasion?
Mrs Smith
Mrs Smith reveals that he led her late husband into debt and then, as executor of the will, did nothing to help her. Wentworth later helps her recover her property.
Q 15Which widowed daughter of Sir Walter's lawyer ends Persuasion as William Elliot's mistress in London?
Mrs Clay
Mrs Clay had been angling to marry Sir Walter himself, a match that might have produced a son and cost William his position as heir.
Q 16In Persuasion's climax, Wentworth overhears Anne Elliot arguing with Captain Harville over which sex is more what?
Faithful in love
Faithful in love is Anne's claim for women, who she says go on loving longest when hope is gone. Wentworth, listening across the room, answers her in writing.
Q 17Captain Wentworth's letter to Anne Elliot in Persuasion pairs hope with which other feeling to describe his state?
Agony
Agony and hope are the two halves of the best-known line in the book, written while Anne is in the same room. He adds that he has loved no one but her.
Q 18What is the first name of Captain Wentworth, the hero of Jane Austen's Persuasion?
Frederick
Frederick Wentworth's rise is thought to echo that of Austen's sailor sibling Charles, who also commanded a sloop young and moved up to frigates.
Q 19Admiral Croft of Persuasion is said to have fought in which great sea battle before serving in the East Indies?
Trafalgar
Trafalgar, fought in 1805, gives the admiral a heroic record, yet Sir Walter still grumbles that life at sea spoils a man's complexion.
Q 20In Persuasion, Anne Elliot and a grieving young officer compare the poems of Walter Scott with those of whom?
Lord Byron
Lord Byron and Scott are the officer's favourites, and Anne gently suggests that so much passionate verse is risky reading for a man in mourning.
Large mirrors, or looking-glasses, lined Sir Walter's dressing room, and the plain-spoken admiral says there was no getting away from oneself.
Q 24On a walk in Persuasion, Captain Wentworth uses what object to praise firmness of character to Louisa Musgrove?
A hazelnut
A hazelnut pulled from a bough, still glossy and whole after the autumn storms, is his picture of a firm mind. Anne overhears it all from the other side of a hedgerow.
Q 25At a concert in Persuasion, Anne Elliot translates the words of a song from which language for her cousin?
Italian
Italian is a language Anne modestly claims to know poorly, even as she turns the song into clear English at sight. Her cousin seizes the chance to flatter her.
Q 26Sir Walter Elliot of Persuasion reads only which book, where he can admire the entry for his own family?
The Baronetage
The Baronetage, a directory of the country's titled families, opens the novel in Sir Walter's hands. He has even improved the printed entry with handwritten additions.
Q 27Sir Walter Elliot's country seat in Persuasion lies in which county of south-west England?
Somerset
Somerset, or Somersetshire as the opening line has it, puts the family seat only fifty miles from the resort where they retreat to economise.
Q 28Charles Hayter, the cousin Henrietta Musgrove is to marry in Persuasion, follows which profession?
Clergyman
Clergyman by profession, he is only a country curate, which is why snobbish Mary thinks him no match for a Musgrove daughter.
Q 29While the Musgrove sisters dance with Captain Wentworth in Persuasion, how does Anne Elliot usually spend the evening?
Playing the music
Playing the music for the dancers suits Anne, who prefers the keyboard to being noticed. Her eyes sometimes fill with tears as she plays.
Q 30After their first meeting in years, Captain Wentworth of Persuasion says Anne Elliot is so what that he hardly knew her?
Altered
Altered is the word her sister Mary tactlessly passes on, and it stings. By the end he is telling Anne that to his eye she could never change.