The younger son of a land rich family in Dorsetshire, Brandon made a career in the army, until at the death of his brother he inherited Delaford. Brandon has a range of interesting achievements that have enough potential to make him a memorable character: He attempts to elope with his teenage cousin Eliza for whom he has a passionate attachment; he has the mortification of seeing her married-off for mercenary reasons to his elder brother at their father’s behest; he serves his country abroad and returns to rescue the dying Eliza from a debtors’ prison; he raises her illegitimate daughter, and fights a duel with her seducer; and he forms a second, passionate attachment to another vibrant seventeen-year-old girl, Marianne.
Despite all this, in social life and courtship, Colonel Brandon is considered an uninteresting character. Unlike the traditional romantic suitor, the Colonel is melancholy, taciturn, cancels expeditions, intrudes at inconvenient moments, and speaks only to Elinor, not to Marianne.
Interestingly, some scholars have seen parallels between Colonel Brandon and Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of India. Hastings had been rumored to be the biological father of Eliza de Feuillide, who was Jane Austen’s cousin.
Pic credit: OUP Oxford
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