Margaret Dashwood is a self portrait of the 13 year old Jane Austen

As I will be detailing in my book, Margaret Dashwood is a very very smart young lady, but till today, I did not realize HOW smart, nor did I realize that she was, in a very real sense, a retrospective self portrait of Jane Austen, who, in publishing Sense and Sensibility in 1811 at the age of 35, was remembering herself at the tender age of 13 in the character of Margaret.

And what made me realize that for certain was the following passage in S&S:

""Margaret," said Marianne, with great warmth, "you know that all this is an invention of your own, and that there is no such person in existence."

"Well, then, he is lately dead, Marianne, for I am sure there was such a man once, and his name begins with an F."

This comment by Margaret takes on startling new meaning in light of the following:

http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2011/06/very-famous-literary-source-for-almost.html

In my above linked blog post, I claim that Loiterer #45 was ghostwritten by Jane Austen in 1789 when she was 13, and the above passage from S&S is a sly verification of her authorship!

And what makes it even slier is that Marianne Dashwood is ALSO a retrospective self portrait of Jane Austen, but at the slightly less tender age of 17!

Cheers, ARNIE