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A Novel of Manners: Jane Austen’s Persuasion Seminar Discussion with Professor Chuck Timlin

Chuck Timlin, University of New Haven faculty member and former English teacher at Choate Rosemary Hall, has brought his teaching skills to the Essex Library community on topics such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Beowulf, Huckleberry Finn, American poetry, and short stories. Now, back by popular demand, he turns his talents to a four-evening seminar examining the social satire Persuasion by Jane Austen. Persuasion is the novel Jane Austen completed in the final year of her life, 1817. It was published posthumously by her family. It is perhaps the most mature of her novels, dealing as it does not with young love but the renewal of love in a woman who has all but given up on experiencing it again in her late 20s, an age in Austen’s time when a woman might think about resigning herself to spinsterhood. It is a beautiful story full of Austen’s most controlled and nuanced insights into what drives people in their lives. The four seminar meetings will take place at the Essex Library on Tuesdays, April 18 and 25, and May 9 and 16 at 6:30 p.m. Attendees are invited to watch a film version of Persuasion on Friday, May 19 at 6:30 p.m. at Centerbrook Architects’ office.

Admission to is free and open to the public. Advanced registration is suggested. For more information or to register, call the Essex Library at 860-767-1560. The Essex Library is located at 33 West Avenue in Essex. Centerbrook Architects’ office is located at 67 Main Street in Centerbrook.