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Who is Eliza Williams in sense and Sensibility?
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When did Jane Austen write Sense & Sensibility?
What did Colonel Brandon tell Marianne about Eliza?
She and Brandon tried to elope but were caught. Unhappy in her marriage, her life took a downward turn while Brandon served in the army abroad. She was seduced by numerous men, divorced Brandon’s brother, and ended up confined to a house because of debt.
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Eliza Williams is a character mentioned in Sense and Sensibility.
Eliza Williams is the ward of Colonel Brandon, though many people (Mrs. Jennings included) believe her to be his illegitimate child. However, she is the illegitimate daughter of Brandon's cousin, also named Eliza, and her unknown lover. The elder Eliza was Brandon's childhood sweetheart and former sister-in-law. The elder Eliza died when Eliza Williams was three. Eliza Williams then became Brandon's ward.
For several years Eliza Williams lived at school where Brandon visited her often. She visited him at Delaford following the death of his brother and his inheritance of the estate.
When she was fourteen, Brandon withdrew her from the school and placed her in a household in Dorsetshire run by a respectable woman, with several other girls her age. She lived there for two years.
When she was sixteen, Brandon gave his consent to her visiting a friend in Bath where the friend's father was convalescing. The two girls ran wild while the father was confined to the house. It was in Bath that Eliza met John Willoughby, who seduced her, and in February, they disappeared together. Brandon did not hear from Eliza for eight months. Her friend refused to give him any information when he tried to find her, and her friend's father had no information to give.
Eliza lived with Willoughby for several months before he left. He did not tell her his address, and he did not return to her like he had promised.
In October, Eliza writes to Brandon at Delaford, and the letter is forwarded to Barton. Brandon cancels a planned excursion to Whitwell to find Eliza in London. Around this time, Willoughby's aunt Mrs. Smith finds out about the affair and insists Willoughby marry Eliza, but he flees Allenham rather than do so.
•In a scene on another version of the film Colonel Brandon visits the teenaged Eliza whom had the baby. She asks about Willoughby thinking that if he saw his baby, he may love her, but Colonel Brandon has news of his engagement to another woman, clearly visibly breaking her heart.
Sense and Sensibility is the first novel by the English author Jane Austen, published in 1811. It was published anonymously; By A Lady appears on the title page where the author's name might have been. It tells the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor (age 19) and Marianne (age 16½) as they come of age. They have an older half-brother, John ...
- 1811
- Romance novel
- Jane Austen
- Thomas Egerton, Military Library (Whitehall, London)
After serving in the East Indies for three years, Colonel Brandon came home and began to search for her. He at last found her a consumptive, "so altered — so faded — worn down by acute suffering of every kind!" He did all he could for her and "was with her in her last moments." Eliza left her only child, three-year-old Eliza, in his charge.
At seventeen, despite her love for Colonel Brandon, Eliza is married off to the Colonel's brother. The reason is this – Eliza has inherited a lot of money, and the Brandons are kind of in the lurch financially, so the Colonel's father strong-arms her into the marriage.
While Brandon was at Barton Park, he received a letter that informed him that Eliza had been seduced by Willoughby, who had gotten her pregnant and then abandoned her. This was why Brandon had left Barton so suddenly.
