We study Bayesian persuasion in linear environments with a privately informed receiver. We allow the sender to condition information provided to the receiver on the receiver's report about his type (private persuasion). We describe implementable outcomes, establish equivalence between public persuasion studied in the prior literature and private persuasion, and draw connections with the standard linear mechanism design with transfers. We also characterize optimal persuasion rules, establish monotone comparative statics, and consider several applications, such as a competitive market for a good with consumption externalities (e.g., cigarettes) in which a benevolent government designs an educational campaign about a payoff-relevant characteristic (e.g., the health risks of smoking).