Who Is Sir Walter Elliot?
Anne's vain baronet father
Sir Walter Elliot is Anne's father, a baronet and the master of Kellynch Hall in Somerset. Nothing makes him prouder than his own good looks and his family's rank; the only book he enjoys reading is the Baronetage, because his own family is listed in it.
Even as his extravagant lifestyle buries him in debt, he refuses to save money by giving up horses or servants. Skillfully guided by his lawyer, Mr. Shepherd, he agrees to rent out Kellynch Hall and live in Bath. When he hears the tenant will be a naval admiral, he sneers that the navy lets men of low birth rise too high and ruins their faces with sun and weather, but in the end he hands the house over anyway.
Austen paints him with humor as a man who cares only about vanity and appearances. His blindness to Anne's good qualities makes her loneliness all the more striking.
Episodes featuring this character3
NEWEpisode 1
Please Stay Out of the MirrorPersuasion
In a grand house sinking under debt, Anne Elliot, the middle daughter, is the one no one in her family listens to. Her vain father and older sister insist they can't possibly give up a single horse or servant. In the end the family decides to let the house and move to Bath. Then, at dusk, a single word drifts through a doorway — "navy" — and for one moment, Anne's eyes waver.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 2
My Ex's Sister Is Moving Into My HousePersuasion (Jane Austen)
While her family turns choosing a tenant into a comedy, settling on a navy admiral, 27-year-old Anne Elliot ends up saying a name before anyone else can. It belongs to the man she gave up more than seven years ago. Out on the woodland path, she remembers the summer she was nineteen, and quietly accepts that his sister is about to live in her home.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 3
Every Night, They Praise the Man I LeftPersuasion (Jane Austen)
Her family leaves her behind because "no one will miss Anne if she stays." So Anne goes to her sister's house three miles away, where everyone soon treats her as the one person who'll listen to their complaints. But in that house, the name of the man she gave up eight years ago starts coming up every night, and always as praise.
19 pages