16 December 1775 18 July 1817 was an English

A 19th century illustration showing Willoughby cutting a lock of Marianne's hair


Marianne, out for a walk, gets caught in the rain, slips, and sprains her ankle. The dashing, handsome John Willoughby, who is visiting his wealthy aunt, Mrs Smith, in the area, happens to be out with his gun and friends hunting nearby and sees the accident. He carries Marianne home and soon wins her admiration with his good looks and outspoken views on poetry, music and art. Willoughby appears the exact opposite of the quiet and reserved Brandon. He visits Marianne every day, and Elinor and Mrs Dashwood begin to suspect that the couple are secretly engaged. Elinor is worried about Marianne's unguarded conduct in Willoughby's presence and cautions her, but Marianne refuses to check her emotions, believing this to be a falsehood. At a picnic outing, Willoughby and Marianne go off together to see the house and estate that Willoughby is to inherit. Elinor is greatly alarmed by Marianne's going off alone to visit a house, the owner of which – Mrs Smith – is unknown to her. Marianne is angry at Elinor's interference; Elinor assumes (as does Marianne) that Willoughby is showing Marianne the house of which she will be mistress upon their marriage. The next day Mrs Dashwood and Elinor find Marianne in hysterics after a morning visit by Willoughby; he informs them that his aunt is sending him to London on business and that he will not return to their area for as long as a year; he brushes aside an invitation to stay with the Dashwoods and leaves hurriedly. Marianne is distraught and feeds her sorrow by playing the music Willoughby brought for her and reading the books they enjoyed together.


Edward Ferrars pays the Dashwoods a short visit at Barton Cottage but seems unhappy and out of sorts. Elinor fears that he no longer has feelings for her. However, unlike Marianne, she does not allow anyone to see her wallow in her sadness, feeling it her duty to be outwardly calm for the sake of her mother and sisters, who dote on Edward and have firm faith in his love for Elinor.


Anne and Lucy Steele, rather vulgar and uneducated cousins of Lady Middleton, come to stay at Barton Park. Sir John tells Lucy as a joke that Elinor is attached to Edward, prompting Lucy to inform Elinor of her secret four year long engagement to Edward. Although Elinor initially blames Edward for engaging her affections when he was not free to do so, she realizes he became engaged to Lucy while he was young and naïve and perhaps has made a mistake. She thinks or hopes that Edward does not love Lucy, but he will not hurt or dishonour her by breaking their engagement. Elinor hides her disappointment and works to convince Lucy she feels nothing for Edward. This is particularly hard as she sees Lucy may not be sincerely in love with Edward and may only make him unhappy. Lucy tells Elinor that Mrs Ferrars will almost certainly disapprove of the match and that the couple plan to wait until she has died before marrying, unless Edward can find a way of supporting himself financially without her.


Elinor and Marianne spend the winter at Mrs Jennings' home in London. Marianne writes a series of letters to Willoughby – prompting Elinor to believe that they are indeed engaged, as only engaged couples could properly correspond in this way. However, Marianne's letters go unanswered, and he snubs her coldly when he sees her at a ball. He later writes to Marianne, enclosing their former correspondence and love tokens, including a lock of her hair and informing her of his engagement to a Miss Grey, a high-born, wealthy woman with £50,000 (equivalent to about £1.7 million today)[1]. Marianne is devastated, and admits to Elinor that she and Willoughby were never engaged, but she loved him and he led her to believe he loved her.


Meanwhile, the truth about Willoughby's real character starts to emerge; Colonel Brandon tells Elinor that Willoughby had seduced Brandon's ward, fifteen-year-old Eliza Williams, and abandoned her when she became pregnant. Brandon was once in love with Miss Williams' mother, a woman who resembled Marianne and whose life was destroyed by an unhappy arranged marriage to the Colonel's brother.


Fanny Dashwood, who is also in London for the season, declines her husband's offer to invite the Dashwood girls to stay with her. Instead, she invites the Misses Steele. Lucy Steele becomes very arrogant and brags to Elinor that Fanny's mother, Mrs Ferrars, favours her. Indeed Fanny and Mrs Ferrars seem genuinely fond of Lucy – so much so that Miss Anne Steele decides to tell them of Lucy's engagement to Edward. When Mrs Ferrars discovers Edward's and Lucy's engagement, she is furious while Fanny throws the Misses Steele out onto the street. Mrs Ferrars demands that Edward end the engagement on pain of disinheritance. Edward, who believes it would be dishonorable to break off with Lucy, refuses and is disinherited in immediate favour of his brother, Robert. Elinor and Marianne feel sorry for Edward, and think him honourable for remaining engaged to a woman with whom he isn't in love.


Edward plans to become ordained as a parish vicar to earn his living and Colonel Brandon, knowing how lives can be ruined when love is denied, expresses his commiseration for Edward's deplorable circumstance to Elinor asking her to be his intermediary in offering Edward a parsonage on Brandon's estate at Delaford, with two hundred pounds a year. Colonel Brandon does not intend the living to enable Edward to marry Lucy as it would be insufficient to pay for a wife and family but intends it to provide Edward some sustenance until he can find something better. Elinor meets Edward's foppish brother Robert and is shocked he has no qualms about claiming his brother's inheritance.


The sisters end their winter stay in London and begin their return trip to Barton via Cleveland, the country estate of Mrs Jennings' son-in-law, Mr Palmer. There, miserable over Willoughby, Marianne neglects her health and becomes dangerously ill. Hearing of her serious illness, Willoughby arrives suddenly and reveals to Elinor that he truly loved Marianne, but since he was disinherited when his benefactress discovered his seduction of Miss Williams, he decided to marry the wealthy Miss Grey.


Elinor tells Marianne about Willoughby's visit. Marianne admits that although she loved Willoughby, she could not have been happy with the libertine father of an illegitimate child, even if he had stood by her. Marianne also realizes her illness was brought on by her wallowing in her grief, by her excessive sensibility, and had she died, it would have been morally equivalent to suicide. She now resolves to model herself after Elinor's courage and good sense.


The family learns Lucy has married Mr Ferrars. When Mrs Dashwood sees how upset Elinor is, she finally realizes how strong Elinor's feelings are for Edward and is sorry she did not pay more attention to her daughter's unhappiness. However, the next day Edward arrives and reveals it was his brother, Robert Ferrars, who married Lucy. He says he was trapped in his engagement to Lucy, "a woman he had long since ceased to love", and she broke the engagement to marry the now-wealthy Robert. Edward asks Elinor to marry him, and she agrees. Edward eventually becomes reconciled with his mother, who gives him ten thousand pounds. He also reconciles with his sister Fanny. Edward and Elinor marry and move into the parsonage at Delaford.


Mr Willoughby's patroness eventually gives him his inheritance because of his prudent marriage. Willoughby realizes marrying Marianne would have produced the same effect; had he behaved honourably, he could have had love and money.


Over the next two years, Mrs Dashwood, Marianne, and Margaret spend most of their time at Delaford. Marianne matures and, at the age of nineteen, decides to marry the 37-year-old Colonel. Although initially she found marriage to someone twenty years her senior repulsive, the gratitude and respect she has come to feel for him develop into a very deep love. The Colonel's house is near the parsonage where Elinor and Edward live, so the sisters and their husbands can visit each other often.