Jane Austen, in a letter to her niece Fanny Knight dated 13 March 1816, after reminding her how "Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked", mentions the heroine of the novel she is in the process of w… 展开

Anne is the overlooked middle daughter of a narcissistic and extravagant baronet, Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch Hall. Unique among Jane Austen heroines, she is, already, 26/27-years-old at the beginning of the novel and se… 展开

Persuasion manifests a significant shift in Austen's attitude toward inherited wealth and rank. Elsewhere in her writing, salvation for the heroine comes in the form of marriage to a well-born gentleman, preferably wealt… 展开