As a palliative to the horror of having to read Treasure Island (never before has anything entirely killed off my small desire to take to the sea in ships) I'm rereading Sense and Sensibility at the same time. I am convinced, again as I am every time I read it, that in this book more than any other, Jane Austin had very particular people in mind rather than just types of people. There is too much blended together in Mr. Collins to make him only one person. So also with practically all the awful Bennets. But Miss Steele, my heavens! She had to have had a very particular woman in mind to produce such a creature.
It grieves me, deeply, that she fixed on naming her 'Anne'.
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2 comments:
She was much kinder to the name Anne in _Persuasion_
As _Sense and Sensibility_ was the first novel written and published, she probably hadn't learned yet how being too specific in your characters can get you into trouble.
Well, at least you know that the real person wasn't named Anne! :D
~R
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