Anne Elliot

So it's like, so, so Bath as a city- Um, you can feel that connection with Austen, and I think because like the pre- yes, like you say, the preservation of the buildings, the way that it's a, a World Heritage Site, um, and, and there is just a sense of, you know, because you absolutely know from the descriptions in her novels, you know, of the location of where the characters are.

And so you can sort of say, "This is where, you know, this is where Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth were reunited on the gravel walk, you know, behind the Royal Crescent." And it's that sort of thing, you know, you, you...

This is where it happened.

And so she, she put so much of that into the novels.

We aren't dealing with a naive teenager looking for her first love anymore.

We are following Anne Elliot, and she is dealing with the suffocating weight of a lost love.

The stakes feel heavier.

Much heavier.

Which is surprising.

It is.

But the version that takes the number four spot on this list, the one most fans agree is the definitive take, is the 1995 BBC version starring Amanda Root as Anne Elliot and Ciaran Hinds as Captain Frederick Wentworth.

And what is so striking about this 1995 version is why it works.

Captain Wentworth looked round at her instantly in a way which showed his noticing of it.

He gave her a momentary glance, a glance of brightness, which seemed to say, "That man is struck with you, and even I, at this moment, see something like Anne Elliot again." Persuasion is set in 1814 in what is known as the false peace between Napoleon's abdication and exile and his escape the following year.

In this short period, naval officers like Admiral Croft and Captain Wentworth were demobilized and returned to Britain before they were hastily recalled to their ships following Napoleon's escape.

Admiral Croft is a stalwart of the Royal Navy.

Such were some of the inducements that Jack ashore was a much beloved person may also have had its influence.

Anne Elliot speaks for the greater part of the nation when she says, The navy, I think, who have done so much for us, have at least an equal claim with any other set of men for all the comforts and all the privileges which any home can give.

Sailors work hard enough for their comforts, we must allow.

That Sir Walter Elliot represents another large section of the community is, however, not to be denied, but his opinions are not of the sort to act as a deterrent to any young man bent on following a gallant profession.

Such a description has been attempted over and over again with varying degrees of success.

Jane Austin tells of a sailor's leave-taking and return only once, and then, as is her way, by the simple narration of details.

Anne Elliot and Captain Harville are having the time-honoured argument as to the relative strength of the feelings of men and women, and to illustrate his point, Captain Harville says, "If I could make you comprehend what a man suffers when he takes a last look at his wife and children and watches the boat he has sent them off in as long as it is in sight, and then turns away and says, 'God knows whether we ever meet again.' And then if I could convey to you the glow of his soul when he does see them again, when coming back after a twelve months' absence perhaps he calculates how soon it be possible to get them there, pretending to deceive himself and saying they cannot be here till such a day, but all the while hoping for them twelve hours sooner and seeing them arrive at last as if heaven had given them wings by many hours sooner still.

If I could explain to you all this and all that a man can bear and do and glories to do for the sake of these treasures of his existence." End of chapter eleven.

It is the perfect adjective.

We follow Anne Elliot, who is 27 years old, which in Austen's era essentially meant she was considered a confirmed spinster past her prime.

Right.

Eight years prior to the start of the novel, Anne was deeply in love with a young, ambitious, but entirely unwealthy naval officer named Captain Frederick Wentworth.

Rehearsing our own mortality? That is an incredible concept.

Think about the mechanics of it.

By safely confronting ghosts in the geometric traps of Hill House, by facing vampires in the snowy passes of Transylvania, or by sitting with the deep existential life regrets of Ivan Ilyich and Anne Elliot within the confined safe pages of a book, we are doing something vital.

We're practicing.

A not-bad-looking man, and he and Anne majorly eye-fuck.

Wentworth clocks it and looks at Anne as if to say, quote, even I see something like Anne Elliot again.

Boom! When they get back to the inn, it's clear that the man had been staying at the same inn, but he's leaving.

Then it becomes clear that he is Mr. Elliot, Anne and Mary's cousin who will inherit Kellynch Hall.

Boxers as well, to try and resuscitate themselves as well.

So there's kind of been this weird gender switcheroo when it comes to smelling salts.

So would women carry smelling salts for themselves in case they got overstimulated? Or did the people around them have the smelling salts? Because we're so interested in Anne Elliot, you know, resourcefully pulling out these smelling salts out of her pocket.

Of course, it's hard to imagine Anne ever being so overstimulated somehow that she would need to be revived with smelling salts.

This is the reason why, for all their skimp skirts, leg-a-mutton sleeves, and bygone impossible bonnets, her characters do not seem to us old-fashioned.

Minds and hearts are made pretty much after the same pattern from century to century, and given a modern dress and speech, Emma or Elizabeth or dear Anne Elliot could enter a drawing room today and excite no surprise except by so closely resembling the people whom they would find there.

Miss Austen's novels are dateless things, Mr. Augustine Burrell tells us.

Nobody in his senses would speak of them as old novels.

John Ingallsant is an old novel, so is Ginx's Baby.

But Emma is quite new, and like a wise woman, affords few clues to her age.

We allude with a special touch of affection to Anne Elliot.

Persuasion, which was written during the last two years of Miss Austen's life, when the refining touch of eternity was already upon her, has always seemed to us the most perfect of her novels.