From Sir Walter Elliot’s copy of the Baronetage –
"ELLIOT OF KELLYNCH HALL.
"Walter Elliot, born March 1, 1760, married, July 15,
1784, Elizabeth, daughter of James Stevenson, Esq. of South Park, in the county
of Gloucester, by which lady (who died 1800) he has issue Elizabeth, born June
1, 1785; Anne, born August 9, 1787; a still-born son, November 5, 1789; Mary,
born November 20, 1791."
In this respected,
landowning group is Anne Elliot.
And Anne is a woman with a past.
Not an immoral or
profligate past, but one in which she shared a great love with a young man of
bright promise. But this
overlooked middle daughter of a vain and shallow father failed to be faithful
to her own heart. Instead she listened
to her trusted confidant and the family’s close advisor, Lady Russell, her late
mother’s best friend. To Lady
Russell, wealth and rank were essential for a good match. The young man’s social status was
considered unacceptable and his fortune nonexistent. And so Anne and her young
man parted.
Now at 27 years old
Anne lives a quiet life at her selfish family’s beck and call… but in the quiet
of her mind… she remembers….
Published 1818, Persuasion
was the last completed novel by Jane Austen. It was released about six months
after her death, bound together in the same volume with another novel, Northanger Abbey, also centered in Bath.
Since Jane became ill during the writing of this work, it did not receive some
of the polishing and fine tuning that Mansfield
Park and Emma had received, and
readers sometimes find it less developed than her earlier works. It really
had no designated title although Jane Austen referred to it as
The Elliots. The title of Persuasion was most likely given to the
book by Jane’s brother, Henry before publication.
Even though they were bound together in publication, there are
marked differences between Persuasion
and Northanger Abbey… and for that
matter, all of the other Jane Austen works. For one, the heroine, Anne Elliot is - at 27 years old and according
to her time period – considered to be past her prime and a “confirmed spinster”, unlike Elizabeth Bennet, Emma Woodhouse or the Dashwood sisters. And the hero of her story has no landed
estates, no history of wealth or privilege behind him…. just a will to succeed
in his life and chosen career.
Jane Austen included much of her own life experience in Persuasion. She knew fashionable Bath
well – both the good and the bad of it - and richly captured the intense social
atmosphere, the superficiality of values and the not too subtle pressure to
measure up. Having two brothers
who reached the rank of admirals in the navy, she also understood the world of
Royal Navy and what it offered young men of the day in the way of social and
economical advancement. The
ability for a young man to advance himself in society and enter the sphere of
gentility was a new thing in Jane Austen’s world. For once a self-made man
could change his future.
But it seems that the real heart of Miss Austen is found in
the concern that she reveals for the plight of young women of her time who were
pressured to accept uncomplimentary connections based on social level or wealth
or to refuse those based only on love and respect where social status did not
measure up. The helplessness of
young women without wise champions was dear to her heart and shines through her
particular treatment of Anne Elliot.
"Elizabeth had
succeeded at sixteen to all that was possible of her mother's rights and
consequence; and being very handsome, and very like himself, her influence had
always been great, and they had gone on together most happily. His other two
children were of very inferior value. Mary had acquired a little artificial
importance by becoming Mrs. Charles Musgrove; but Anne, with an elegance of
mind and sweetness of character, which must have placed her high with any
people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister; her word
had no weight, her convenience was always to give way — she was only Anne.”
- Jane Austen, Persuasion Chapter 1
There is plenty of time – start reading!
