My favorite Jane Austen and my first one too. I also think that I might be teaching this book to AP students this year. It’s not as funny as some of the others, but it’s also not as long, but Anne Elliot is such a whole, wonderful character who goes through a trying, if fruitful, emotional journey in this novel that is so well-rendered that it’s impossible to dislike. In the first few chapters of the book, we first meet Anne’s father, who is in absolute love with being part of a baronage. His favorite book, which he is reading when the novel begins, is the lineage of the baronage, just tracing through the various entries. He laments that where the baronage will be headed is in slight question, especially given that of his three daughters, the oldest Elizabeth is still unmarried at 29, Anne at 26 is…well, he doesn’t want to think too much about Anne who is as plain as she is boring, and Mary, who is married to a wealthy landowner, but who is common.
We also learn that Elliot is broke and owes a large debt. He’s is slowly coming around to the idea that he’s going to have to let out the estate. His best friend and NOT love interest is Mrs Russell, and even though he is a widower and she a widow, there’s no thought of them getting married. For one, he has Elizabeth as a best friend and companion, and Mrs Russell is a prime example of how being a widow has all the advantages of being in a wealthy marriage, and none of the downsides (the husband). We get a few examples in the novel of marriages that require a LOT of unrewarded emotional labor.
Who is rich enough to let the estate, not embarrassing or embarrassed to do it, and has the prestige to pull it off? The answer it seems to most concerned are retiring naval officers whose commissions and spoils of war offer up the wealth needed over costs, whose reputations are sound enough, and who have a solid excuse for not owning land otherwise, having been off escorting merchant ship, destroying French warships, and capturing wealth. So the Crofts fit the bill and they will move in sooner than later. We finally get some thoughts from Anne who realizes that if the Crofts show up, so too will Mrs Croft’s brothers, including her former almost fiance Capt Wentworth.
Eight years earlier Anne and Capt (Frederick) Wentworth fell in love but at the moment of commitment, Anne’s father convinced her not to marry him. She’s been cursing her own weakness for the time since for falling under that persuasion. When Wentworth shows back up, he’s clearly not forgiven her, and Anne feels confirmed in her self-criticism and doesn’t blame him. But there’s a lot more novel after that.
I first read this about 15 years ago, and while I remembered the ultimate ending, I had forgotten a lot of the middle, including the hilariously Austen plot of like 8 single people who are all going to sort themselves out in short order.