Well yes, Lady Susan is at the end, I started reading it because it was so short and then went back to Emma, which was where I'd ended last time around when I started reading front to cover. Likely we do have the same one, then - does your copy have a picture of Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth on the front cover, too?

Marianne, yes. But Elinor is the protagonist of that book, surely?

Yes... except that I actually think he's remarkably open to things going in both directions, considering the age gap, he's really not patronizing in general and has full respect for her mind and her opinions. And she does arrive at most of her conclusions on her own.

Still, there is something decidedly creepy about the part where he says he's been in love with her since she was thirteen. And the fact that he's really been the only man in her life except for her father for all these years, and knew her as a child and then fell in love with her when she was still a teenager.

What, for coming up with theories that would've made Jane Austen faint?

I can't argue with that, of course. Can't read her mind or determine whether she actually believed in the stances she took in her books. All I can do is point out that in the books she does take those stances, and that might bother some people - certainly it makes it harder for us to sympathize.

It's an interesting question, though - whether she might have written a more satisfying ending to Mansfield Park if it was only up to her. Or perhaps even did, and then rewrote it to make the book more edifying...