Happy Birthday to Anne Elliot!

Happy 236th birthday to Anne! Usually we’re in the dark about when our beloved Jane Austen characters were born, but Persuasion’s Anne Elliot is the exception.  Usually even the year of their birth is uncertain, but thanks to Sir Walter’s narcissistic love of seeing his own listing in the Baronetage, we know Anne was born on August 9, 1787:

Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed. This was the page at which the favourite volume always opened:

“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.”

So let’s raise a glass to the immortal heroine of second chances, who inspired one of the greatest love letters of all time and earned her own happy ending. Happy Birthday, Anne, and may you inspire readers for at least another 236 years!