"A Future to Look Forward to?": Extinction and Evolution in Jane Austen's Persuasion

• Published in: Eighteenth-century life Vol. 41; no. 2; p. 154
• Main Author: Murphy, Olivia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Durham Duke University Press, NC & IL 01.04.2017
• Subjects: 18th century; Austen, Jane (1775-1817); Darwin, Charles (1809-1882); Evolution; Exile; Extinction; Natural history; Novels; Romantic period

Charles Darwin's profound interest in Austen's novels--Persuasion (1817) in particular--is well known. This article offers a new interpretation of Persuasion as a pre-Darwinian novel, concerned with the processes of natural selection and evolution in human societies. Many of the discoverie...