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Original poster

Does anyone have a favourite Jane Austen Villain.

87 replies

florentina1 · 03/01/2022 14:17

I am torn between Fanny Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility and Mrs Elton from Emma.

Also, while we are idling away a gloomy Monday, which Austen character do you most want to live with. I want to be adopted by the Musgroves.

OP posts:
Mercedes519 · 04/01/2022 11:12

And I have been known to mutter under my breath "I send no compliments to your mother" after a tetchy phone call...

Mercedes519 · 04/01/2022 11:11

@CaveMum I SO want a Pemberley sweatshirt...it's one of those things that if you know it, you know it and if you don't, you wouldn't give it a second look Grin

Deadringer · 04/01/2022 11:07

Facts are such horrid things.

CaveMum · 04/01/2022 10:58

Thought I’d just leave this link here if anyone is in need of a new jumper/t-shirt Wink

www.bookishly.co.uk/collections/literary-clothing/

Annaghgloor · 04/01/2022 10:57

@PerkingFaintly

Oh yes, it's the Crofts I'd love to be adopted by.
I have an awful feeling that the Crofts, while lovely, would think nothing of departing in a frigate the second war was declared, and being themselves entirely immune to seasickness, claustrophobia, fear of being broadsided by the French, would simply think you were a bit niminy piminy and wet if you failed to thrive in your teeny cabin living on biscuit. Grin
GiantHaystacks2021 · 04/01/2022 10:55

Lady Catherine de Burgh and the actress who played her in the Colin Firth version of P&P.
Tremendous.

Laska2Meryls · 04/01/2022 10:52

'You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.'

This I say to myself often because I can be a terrible dweller on stuff ( trivial and not so) that happened years ago and there's no changing any of it now , and neither was it at all important in the big scheme of things, nor should really be dwelt on now ..

Annaghgloor · 04/01/2022 10:50

@PerkingFaintly

" That will make your ladyship's situation at present more pitiable; but it will have no effect on me."

I say this sternly in my head on occasion, when dealing with emotional blackmailers. It's wonderfully stiffening to one's resolve.Grin

Though it invites the riposte 'I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your mother.' Grin
PerkingFaintly · 04/01/2022 10:43

" That will make your ladyship's situation at present more pitiable; but it will have no effect on me."

I say this sternly in my head on occasion, when dealing with emotional blackmailers. It's wonderfully stiffening to one's resolve.Grin

Nathlash · 03/01/2022 23:48

@DameAlyson

But then some of her heroes are not terribly heroic .. Gawd... Edmund Bertram.. what a pompous twit.. I certainly wouldn't want to live with him . ..

I did Mansfield Park for A Level. The girls in the class were unanimous in preferring Tom to Edmund. We all thought Fanny was a drip, too.

Have you read Joan Aiken’s sequel Mansfield Revisited? She sends drippy Edmund and Fanny abroad, rehabilitates the Crawfords, and has a romance between Tom and Susan (Price, Fanny’s sister who comes to live at Mansfield). And turns a married Julia Bertram into pretty much Mrs Norris #2. It’s very effective and cleverly done.
PerkingFaintly · 03/01/2022 23:47

Oh yes, it's the Crofts I'd love to be adopted by.

PermanentTemporary · 03/01/2022 23:45

But that's the thing - Fanny and Edmund are perfect together! You'd sigh if you had to invite them to dinner but Austen gives them a powerful love story even though they are difficult to spend time with.

DameAlyson · 03/01/2022 23:42

But then some of her heroes are not terribly heroic .. Gawd... Edmund Bertram.. what a pompous twit.. I certainly wouldn't want to live with him . ..

I did Mansfield Park for A Level. The girls in the class were unanimous in preferring Tom to Edmund. We all thought Fanny was a drip, too.

Nathlash · 03/01/2022 23:36

I also vote Lady Susan, but if we’re only including JA’s mature work, I suppose Mrs Norris, with a nod to General Tilney.

Obsidiansphere · 03/01/2022 23:28

Wickham! The cad!

PermanentTemporary · 03/01/2022 23:23

I've read Mansfield Park most recently so I'll say Aunt Norris as my top villain, though Fanny Dashwood is a bit more subtle as a character. Mrs Elton may be awful but is she villainous??

I'd like to live with Mrs Dashwood once Marianne has left home, she always seemed a cheerful type and she's exactly like me - I am always planning improvements for when I am a little more beforehand with the world.

headintheproverbial · 03/01/2022 23:18

I know it's just so cliche but I love 'it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man of good fortune must be in want of a wife'.

Deadringer · 03/01/2022 23:14

Obstinate, headstrong girl.

Original poster
florentina1 · 03/01/2022 21:06

Fanny not Granny.

OP posts:
Original poster
florentina1 · 03/01/2022 21:05

This is fun. What about favourite quotes. I love Ganny’s “people always live such an unextraordinary long life when there is an annuity to be paid”. Also how the young Musgrove “ who was thought much more of when he was dead, than when he ever was when alive”.

OP posts:
Deadringer · 03/01/2022 20:15

I like the Musgroves, but they would always put their own daughters before me, so i think i would be happy living with the Crofts. Good, honest sensible people with big hearts. (And in very comfortable surroundings).

JennyForeigner · 03/01/2022 20:12

Edmund in Mansfield Park. He's a pie.

CaveMum · 03/01/2022 20:11

Definitely Lady Catherine - she reminds me of my late-MIL! Not in a behavioural way, more in the way she spoke: several times she would make a comment about asking me to “send my regards to your mother.”

Deadringer · 03/01/2022 20:11

Lady Susan tops the lot imo, a nasty, conniving, insinuating woman, i love her!

Purplewithred · 03/01/2022 20:10

Oh Willoughby for sure - I like my villains sexy.

That's tonight's TV viewing sorted...

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