Introduction and Notes by Elaine Jordan, Reader in Literature, University of Essex. What does persuasion mean - a firm belief, or the action of persuading someone to think something else? Anne Elliot is one of Austen's quietest heroines, but also one of the strongest and the most open to change. She lives at the time of the Napoleonic wars, a time of accident, adventure, the making of new fortunes and alliances. A woman of no importance, she manoeuvres in her restricted circumstances as her long-time love Captain Wentworth did in the wars. Even though she is nearly thirty, well past the sell-by bloom of youth, Austen makes her win out for herself and for others like herself, in a regenerated society.

Elaine Jordan has written her first book with personal reflections on a wide variety of biblical and spiritual subjects ranging from the providence of God, to faith, children have free will, situation ethics, management, etc. A delightful group of short essays by a Christian author.

This book provides a valuable introduction for students and other readers of Tennyson's poetry and presents an account of its major themes and concerns. Elaine Jordan examines Tennyson's uneasy position as a writer of the male middle-class ascendancy and shows how his poetry reveals ambivalent attitudes towards manliness, war, and nineteenth-century scientific rationality. In his early Idylls she finds him experimenting with different political attitudes, investigating the relationship between individual happiness and general progress; in his monologues he is caught between motion and stasis, calling into question the Romantic quest to integrate the language of self with its object; in The Princess he addresses contemporary debates on the role and status of women; his In Memoriam explores loss and relationship through images of the body and questions of language; Maud deals with images of masculinity and femininity in relation to to violence and sexual love; and Idylls of the King, his most imperialist and most pessimistic poem, highlights his regard for intuition and vision in the face of scientific 'laws' of nature and society. The study introduces these themes and shows how they relate to each other.

This book of reflections on life drawn from the Bible discusses a wide range of human experiences drawn from contemporary and ancient examples. Easy to read and uplifting. "Elaine Jordan's book provides exhortation that is needed to impress scriptural lessons. Both Christians and non-Christians will profit from her book, Reflections. Most devotional books are almost devoid of Scripture. Such books tell a little feel-good story and include a token verse at the end. But Mrs. Jordan's lessons grow out of, and are solidly based on, Scripture. I am happy to encourage students to be edified by sister Jordan's Reflections." - Bob Waldron