“And upon looking over his letters and things, she found it was so, and is perfectly sure that this must be the very man, and her head is quite full of it, and of poor Richard!” (Austen, 34) Richard Musgrove is a very, very minor character in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. However, his presence in the novel allows Austen to initially stake her claim on one of the novel’s overriding themes. Austen presents the idea that one’s merit is more a measure of usefulness and worth than the rank that one’s family holds. This is a very powerful and relatively new idea for the early 18th century, a time period ....

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