# Miss Elinor Lorburn — Hudson River Bracketed character guide

> Miss Elinor Lorburn in Hudson River Bracketed by Edith Wharton.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Miss Lorburn, old Miss Lorburn, Elinor Lorburn, Lorburn, Elinor, poor Elinor, Cousin Elinor

**First appearance:** 0006-iii

## Snapshot

The aged, rheumatic mistress of the Willows, who frets over her decaying estate from a Stuyvesant Square house and calls everyone but herself 'poor.'

## Who they are

Elinor Lorburn owns the Willows, the old Hudson River house that haunts Vance's imagination, though she can no longer keep an eye on it from her sickroom in Stuyvesant Square. Her world is peopled with relatives she pities as 'poor,' and she speaks of Halo Tarrant waiting for the Willows with the same resigned compassion she extends to everyone but herself. Her refusal to see her own frailty, her reverence for the place's past, and her slow relinquishment of it make her the living embodiment of the continuity Vance is only beginning to understand.

## In the story

### [VI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/hudson_river_bracketed_se/chapters/vi)

The deceased owner of the house and library; her presence is felt through her books and portrait.

### [XXVIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/hudson_river_bracketed_se/chapters/xxviii)

Vance imagines her youth and loneliness in the Willows, trying to evoke her past for his novel.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/hudson_river_bracketed_se/characters/miss_lorburn
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/hudson_river_bracketed_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/hudson_river_bracketed_se/characters