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Who Loved Jane Austen?

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Jane Austen finished writing her final complete novel, PERSUASION , 195 years ago this month.  It’s my favorite among her novels.  I feel it more than her others – the pain Anne Elliot feels.  Imagining that she’s made a mistake that cannot be undone, she holds her pain in check, always ready to serve others, to grieve privately, but to wish she had not been so easily persuaded when she was young. I can’t help wondering how much of herself Miss Austen poured into Anne’s character.  Perhaps not as a copy of her experience, but an imprint of her own heartache, pieced together into another form that has become one of literature’s most loved characters. Many have speculated about the romantic inspiration for Miss Austen.  Whom did she love?  Was she loved in return?  What were her regrets? Histories have been dissected, correspondence examined; we read between the lines and speculate.  Books are written, movies filmed.  We wrap them in fiction to try and understand, but we don