Character guide

Elinor Dashwood

major

Also known as Elinor, Miss Dashwood, dear Elinor, poor Elinor

The eldest Dashwood sister, whose steady sense and concealed feelings make her the family's quiet negotiator in love, money, and other people's secrets.

Marianne Dashwood

major

Also known as Marianne, Marianne Dashwood, Miss Marianne, Mary

A seventeen-year-old romantic who believes feeling should be ungoverned, she falls hard and fast for a man as ardent and imprudent as herself.

Edward Ferrars

major

Also known as Edward, Mr. Ferrars, Mr. Edward Ferrars, Poor Edward

A reserved, honorable gentleman with no fortune and no gift for performance, whose hidden obligations make his growing attachment to Elinor a study in restraint.

John Willoughby

major

Also known as Willoughby, Mr. Willoughby, poor Willoughby

A dashing young man of quick imagination and open manners, he seems made for Marianne until his carelessness with propriety begins to worry her sister.

Colonel Brandon

major

Also known as Brandon, Colonel, the Colonel

A quiet, thirty-five-year-old soldier with a good estate and a sorrowful past, he loves Marianne silently while everyone else watches the wrong man.

Lucy Steele

supporting

Also known as Lucy, Miss Steele, Lucy Steele, Miss Lucy Steele

A cunning young woman with no fortune and a talent for smiling confidences, she claims a prior engagement that quietly rearranges Elinor's world.

Mrs. Jennings

supporting

Also known as dear Mrs. Jennings

Mrs. Jennings is the Dashwood sisters' host in London, a woman whose zeal for matchmaking runs ahead of her ability to read a room. She cheerfully spreads the rumor of Marianne's engagement to Willoughby, laughing over a letter that leaves Marianne nearly choked with grief, while Elinor must sit beside her and quietly insist the report is false. Her good heart and total want of delicacy make her both a genuine comfort and an unwitting instrument of pain, and she keeps the social machinery of the novel turning.

Sir John Middleton

supporting

Also known as Sir John, John

Sir John is the Dashwoods' landlord at Barton Cottage, a chatty, generous man whose kindness overflows all bounds of civility. He calls the morning after their arrival, sends garden produce and game within hours, insists on carrying their letters and sharing his newspaper daily, and presses them to dine at Barton Park every day. His frankness and warmth stand in comic contrast to his reserved wife and cold mother-in-law, and his relentless sociability draws the sisters into the very company that will shape their fortunes.

Lady Middleton

supporting

Also known as Middleton

Lady Middleton is the mistress of Barton Park, handsome and graceful but with nothing to say beyond the most commonplace remark. She is roused to enjoyment only by her four noisy children, who pull her about and end all conversation; she calls her husband to order over music she long ago gave up playing. Her coldness is so repulsive that even Colonel Brandon's gravity and Mrs. Jennings's boisterous mirth seem interesting beside it, and she embodies the polished emptiness the Dashwood sisters must navigate.

Fanny Dashwood

supporting

Also known as Fanny, Mrs. John Dashwood, Poor Fanny

Fanny Dashwood is the mistress of Norland who takes possession the moment her father-in-law dies, showing how little attention to others' comfort she can manage when occasion requires. She talks her weak husband down from three thousand pounds to nothing, and her snobbery and self-interest drive the Dashwood women from their home. Her contrast with Edward is so stark that Mrs. Dashwood declares it enough to say he is unlike Fanny, and her coldness sets the novel's central displacement in motion.

John Dashwood

supporting

Also known as Mr. John Dashwood, John Dashwood

John Dashwood promises his dying father he will make his stepmother and half-sisters comfortable, and genuinely means to give them a thousand pounds apiece. But he is very fond of his wife, and Fanny is a stronger, narrower version of himself; by degrees the sum shrinks to nothing. His propriety in ordinary duties earns him general respect, yet his weakness and selfishness leave the Dashwood women dependent on the charity of distant relatives, and his failure of nerve is the quiet engine of the plot.

Mrs. Ferrars

supporting

Also known as Ferrars, poor Mrs. Ferrars

Mrs. Ferrars is the matriarch whose fortune and approval govern her sons' prospects, and whose disapproval can strip a man of everything. Her obsession with wealth and social standing makes Edward's secret engagement to Lucy Steele a catastrophe, and her name hangs over Elinor's hopes throughout the novel. When news arrives that Robert has married Lucy instead, the release it brings Elinor is the more startling for coming from the very quarter that seemed most implacable.

Robert Ferrars

supporting

Also known as Mr. Robert Ferrars, Robert

Robert Ferrars moves through fashionable society as the favored, frivolous son, absorbed in trifles and his own consequence while his elder brother Edward bears the family's displeasure. His vanity and want of principle make him the kind of man who takes what he wants without weighing the cost to others. When his choices collide with Edward's long entanglement, the consequences ripple through the Dashwood sisters' hopes, making Robert a small but pivotal agent of change in the novel's middle stretch.

Mrs. Palmer

supporting

Also known as Charlotte

Charlotte Palmer is a pretty, perpetually laughing young wife whose openness and kindness more than atone for her want of elegance and recollection. Her folly is inoffensive because it is never conceited, yet her thoughtless laugh and constant cheerfulness can grate on more discerning company like Elinor's. As the daughter of the meddling Mrs. Jennings and sister of the chilly Lady Middleton, she embodies the well-meaning but shallow society the Dashwoods must navigate, offering warmth without wisdom.

Mr. Palmer

supporting

Also known as Palmer

Mr. Palmer arrives in the novel as a gentleman of fashion and self-regard, perfectly civil to visitors yet openly contemptuous of his wife and mother-in-law. Elinor finds him capable of pleasant company, spoiled only by his excessive opinion of his own superiority, his nice eating, and his idle mornings at billiards. His selfishness and conceit serve as a foil to Edward Ferrars's generous temper, sharpening Elinor's appreciation for the man she quietly loves.

Margaret Dashwood

minor

Also known as Margaret, Miss Margaret

The youngest Dashwood sister, still a child with a lively imagination.

Mrs. Dashwood

supporting

Also known as III Mrs. Dashwood

Mrs. Dashwood is a loving, affectionate mother whose lively imagination and romantic temperament make her more like a sister than a parent to Elinor and Marianne. She encourages Marianne's passionate attachment to Willoughby and only later recognizes how her own mistaken judgment contributed to her daughter's heartbreak. Her exuberant hopes and quick feelings drive much of the family's emotional weather, making her both a source of warmth and a cautionary presence in the sisters' early and middle arcs.

Miss Grey

minor

Also known as Grey

A wealthy young woman whom Willoughby marries for her fortune after abandoning Marianne.

Anne Steele

minor

Also known as Nancy

Lucy Steele's older, less clever sister who accidentally reveals Lucy's secret engagement.

Mrs. Smith

minor

Willoughby's wealthy aunt who disinherits him after learning of his misconduct.

Miss Morton

minor

Also known as the Hon. Miss Morton

A wealthy heiress whom Mrs. Ferrars wants Edward to marry.

Eliza Williams

minor

Also known as Betty, Eliza, Miss Williams

Colonel Brandon's ward, seduced and abandoned by Willoughby.

Mr. Harris

minor

An apothecary who attends to Marianne during her illness.

Mr. Donavan

minor

Also known as Donavan

A surgeon called to treat Marianne's illness.

Mr. Pratt

minor

Uncle of Lucy and Anne Steele, with whom Edward Ferrars once lodged.

Thomas Palmer

minor

Also known as Thomas

Mr. and Mrs. Palmer's infant son.

Harry Dashwood

minor

Also known as Mr. Henry Dashwood, Harry

John and Fanny Dashwood's young son, heir to Norland.

Mrs. Taylor

minor

A former housekeeper at Norland who gives information to Mrs. Dashwood.

Dr. Davies

minor

A physician consulted during Marianne's illness.

Mr. Jennings

minor

The late husband of Mrs. Jennings, mentioned in passing.

Lady Elliott

minor

Also known as Elliott

A friend of Mrs. Jennings mentioned in conversation.

Annamaria

minor

Also known as dear Annamaria

One of Lady Middleton's young children.

Bartlett

minor

A servant at Norland who gossips about the Dashwood family.

Mrs. Willoughby

minor

Willoughby's wife, formerly Miss Grey, who is unaware of his past.

Lucy Ferrars

minor

Lucy Steele after her marriage to Robert Ferrars.

Mr. Gray

minor

Also known as Gray

A friend of Willoughby mentioned in his letter to Marianne.