Every Jane Austen Love Interest, Ranked

Image via Focus Features Published Nov 3, 2026, 12:18 AM EST Lisa Nordin is an actress, writer, and fan of all things performing arts. Her favorite genres are Sci-Fi and Fantasy. She is a self-published author and enjoys exploring how fictional stories help define and qualify the human experience. Sign in to your Collider account Jane Austen fans have enjoyed a plethora of characters to dissect over the years, especially romantic ones. This is quite fortunate because in Austen's books there are a lot of them. Every main character has at least two romantic interests: one that they secretly love and one that is recommended to them by others. Diving into this rich and varied territory, there is a kaleidoscope of personality traits to admonish and admire. Austen does a fantastic job of making her characters feel real and paints them so vividly in readers' minds that familiarity with them feels like second nature. Out of the bouquet of leading men who won the hearts of Austen's main characters, here is how they stack up against one another. 7 Edmund Bertram 'Mansfield Park' (1814) Image via Company Pictures Edmund Bertram is the beige of Jane Austen romantic interests. He is neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm in many respects. He is a kind person and takes care of his younger cousin Fanny when she arrives to live with him and his family in Mansfield Park. Even though Fanny develops romantic feelings for Edmund, he spends the majority of the story pining for Mary Crawford. Edmund's admiration for Fanny feels like an afterthought. He only decides he likes Fanny when he has a falling out with Mary and is determined not to love her anymore. Edmund's last-minute pivot to Fanny feels more like a rebound than a realization. Even though Edmund is more virtuous than the lustful Henry Crawford, he is consistently infatuated with Mary. Though Fanny gets her happily ever after, and they end up together, readers are left to wonder how true his affections for her really are. 6 Henry Tilney 'Northanger Abbey' (1818) Image via ITV Henry Tilney is a great match for Catherine in Northanger Abbey. They share similar interests and love to read, especially Gothic novels. They have different manners, and the sarcastic and charismatic Henry comes to admire the candid and genuine, straightforward nature of Catherine. Henry was close to his late mother and has a good relationship with his sister. This gives him a keen insight into female feelings, and he expresses knowledge of topics that men of the era had little interest in, like fabric choices for dresses. He empathizes with his mother and sister's plights and recognizes how his father's treatment of them was cruel. Unlike other characters in Austen's novels (Willoughby, Frank Churchill, cough, cough), Henry stands up to his father and proposes to Catherine, despite his objections based on her lack of fortune. 5 Captain Frederick Wentworth 'Persuasion' (1818) Image via Sony Pictures Classics An influence over a person can be a powerful thing, and that subject is brought to bear in Persuasion. Although Captain Frederick Wentworth and Anne Elliot are in love, Anne is persuaded by her father and her mentor not to marry him. Captain Wentworth is snubbed by her family as being poor and beneath them socially, and they want Anne to wait and marry a wealthy gentleman instead. After a successful career in the navy, Captain Wentworth comes back into Anne's life, and they both eventually confess that they have never stopped loving each other. When Wentworth returns, he is wealthy, successful, and a respected naval officer. His social status has changed, and he is looking for a wife. Although he secretly still loves Anne, he takes the opportunity to get back at her by treating her with indifference and flirting with Louisa Musgrove. Wentworth doesn't seem to realize that his actions could be misinterpreted by Louisa and her family. Luckily, her feelings for him cease, and he eventually proposes to and marries Anne. It is hard to blame Wentworth for being a little spiteful around the woman who broke his heart, but doing it at the expense of the young and naive Louisa was careless. Luckily, it ended up in everyone's favor, and all's well that ends well. Despite his moody overreaction upon his return, Wentworth is one of Austen's most endearing heroes because of his fidelity to Anne. Persuasion examines long-lost love from both a male and female perspective, and Wentworth is a figure many can identify with. 4 Edward Ferrars 'Sense and Sensibility' (1811) Image via Focus Features When readers first meet Edward Ferrars, they wonder if he will be as petty and materialistic as his sister Fanny, but he turns out to be quite the opposite in Sense and Sensibility. Unlike his other two siblings, Edward is humble, kind, and a genuinely nice person. He forms an attachment to Elinor as they spend time together before she and her mother and sisters move out of Norland Park. However, things seem hopeless and complicated for Elinor when she finds out that he has secretly been engaged to Lucy Steele for several years. For much of the rest of the novel, it appears as though Elinor and Edward will never be together, until a shocking plot twist towards the very end! Austen knew how to keep her readers on the edge of their seats, and Elinor and Edward's delayed gratification is one of the best. Although Edward did not purposefully mislead anyone, it was harsh for Elinor to hear about his engagement from Lucy instead of him. When eventually confronted by his strict and resentful mother about the engagement, Edward was willing to marry Lucy or set her free since he was disinherited, and he would not go back on his word, which is admirable. Fans rejoice along with Elinor when she and Edward get to be together at last in a surprising twist near the end of the book. Edward is as happy as Elinor to be free to marry her, and their bond based on friendship makes a solid foundation for a happy marriage. Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Iconic Romance Is Your Favorite? Harry & Sally · Love & Basketball · Heated Rivalry · Titanic Four great love stories, and four completely different ideas of what love actually is. One is a friendship that took twelve years to admit itself. One is two people who refuse to stop competing. One happens entirely behind closed doors. And one lasts five days and never stops mattering. Eight questions decide which one is really yours. 🍂Harry & Sally(1989) 🏀Love & Basketball(2000) 🏒Heated Rivalry(HBO Max) 🚢Titanic(1997) FIND YOUR ROMANCE → 01 How does your love story start? The first scene tells you what kind of story this is going to be. AWe are friends for years before either of us says anything. BWe want the same thing and neither of us backs down. CNobody can know, including our closest friends. DOne look across a room and everything changes. NEXT QUESTION → 02 What do the two of you keep arguing about? Every great romance has one fight it has over and over. AWhether this is actually happening, and what to call it. BWhose career comes first this year. CWhether we will ever be honest about this in public. DNothing small. When we fight, it is about everything. NEXT QUESTION → 03 How do you show somebody that you love them? Grand gestures are easy to write. This is the harder question. AI remember every single thing they have told me. BI show up to the things that matter to them. CI keep their secrets like they are my own. DI would give up something enormous for them. NEXT QUESTION → 04 What is actually standing in the way? There is always something. Which something tells you the genre. ATiming. We keep finding each other at the wrong moment. BAmbition. We both want big lives and they do not match. CThe world. It is not safe to be open about this yet. DEverybody around us has decided this cannot happen. NEXT QUESTION → 05 Which romantic moment gets you every single time? Be honest. There is one that works on you and you know which. ASomebody running across a city to say it before midnight. BSomebody in the stands who stayed until the very end. CA look across a crowded room that nobody else catches. DSomebody promising to hold on, and meaning it. NEXT QUESTION → 06 What would you actually risk for the right person? Every romance asks this. Most people find out far too late. AA friendship I could never get back. BThe plan I have had for my life since I was a kid. CMy privacy. All of it would become public. DEverything. I would not think about it for long. NEXT QUESTION → 07 Where are the two of you in ten years? Some love stories are about the meeting. Some are about the staying. AStill talking. We have never run out of things to say. BBuilding something together, both of us still ambitious. CFinally open about it, after years of being careful. DApart, and I still think about it constantly. NEXT QUESTION → 08 Which of these sounds most like something you would say? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your romance. AI would rather talk to you than anybody else, forever. BI am not giving up either of us. We find a way to have both. CThis is mine, and I am not explaining it to anyone. DI would do the whole thing again, even knowing how it ends. REVEAL MY ROMANCE → Roll The Credits Your Romance Is…Four love stories, four completely different ideas of what it means to be somebody's person. This is the one that matches how you actually fall, and what it would ask of you. Harry & SallyYou do not fall for strangers. You fall for the person you have already been talking to for years, which is the slowest and by some distance the most durable way anybody has found to do this. When Harry Met Sally made the case that the best romance is an argument you enjoy, conducted over a decade, by two people refusing to admit what is happening. You want to be known rather than swept away. Somebody who remembers your worst story is doing better work than anybody arriving with flowers. The film is unusually honest about timing. These two are wrong for each other repeatedly until suddenly they are not, and neither of them engineered it. You would still be talking about everything at eighty. That is the entire promise. Love & BasketballYou want a partner, not an audience. Somebody who wants their own life as badly as you want yours, and who would never ask you to be smaller to make the relationship easier. This is the rare romance where both people have a real career and the film takes both of them equally seriously. You would rather be pushed than protected. The right person for you is also a bit of a rival, and that never entirely goes away. It understands the actual problem in ambitious relationships. Not whether you love each other, but whose turn it is this year. You would still be competing at forty. That is how you would know it was working. Heated RivalryThe intensity was never the problem. The secrecy is. You are drawn to a love that lives entirely in private, and to the particular ache of wanting somebody you are not supposed to want. Heated Rivalry runs on the oldest engine in romance: two people on opposite sides, meeting in secret, getting far more attached than either of them planned. You keep your private life genuinely private, and something in you finds hidden things more real than public ones. The tension is not only between the two of them. It is between what they have and what it would cost either one to say it out loud. Years of this, and the whole story is really about whether either of them will finally stop hiding. TitanicYou do not do this cautiously. When it happens for you it is immediate and total and it rearranges everything, and you would not accept a smaller version of it. Titanic gave us the biggest romance in film history and then made it last about five days, which is precisely the point of it. You measure love by intensity rather than duration. A few days of the real thing beats decades of something merely comfortable. The film is not only about the romance. It is about a woman who went on to live an enormous life afterwards because of it. You would still be telling this story at a hundred years old, and telling it exactly the same way. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 3 Colonel Brandon 'Sense and Sensibility' (1811) Image via Sony Pictures Releasing To quote the 1995 film version of Sense and Sensibility, Colonel Brandon is "[…] the kindest and best of men." Suffering numerous heartbreaks, Colonel Brandon perseveres and continues to display love, loyalty, and honor. Brandon is betrayed and conspired against by his father and brother. They force his sweetheart Eliza to marry Brandon's brother and send him into the army. When he returns, Eliza's life has taken a tragic turn, and before she dies, he promises to care for her illegitimate daughter, also named Eliza. Brandon again has to pick up the pieces when the younger Eliza is left pregnant and abandoned by Willoughby. In spite of all of his setbacks, betrayals, and wounds from others, Brandon does not become harsh or cruel. He develops a strong admiration for Marianne Dashwood and wants to marry her. Marianne is not attracted to Brandon at first because he has a more reserved and quiet nature. As she spends time with him, she starts to realize that there is more under the surface, and he does care deeply about passions and pursuits, like music. It is completely understandable why Brandon keeps his feelings close to the chest. The last time he openly loved someone, everything went wrong, and he was stabbed in the back by those closest to him. Towards the final chapters of the book, Marianne comes to see all the admirable character traits Brandon possesses, and they marry. It will likely take some time for Brandon to be able to let his guard down fully, but a feeling and open person like Marianne is the perfect partner to help him. He is also unfailingly kind to their family and gets along well with Elinor. 2 Fitzwilliam Darcy 'Pride and Prejudice' (1813) If there is a man who can take notes, it's Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. An aristocrat since birth, Darcy has been largely influenced by the affluent crowd around him and has strict opinions on wealth, social standing, and rank. However, all of these long-held ideals get challenged when he falls in love with the socially less endowed Elizabeth Bennet. In perhaps one of the worst marriage proposals ever, Darcy, who has already persuaded his friend not to propose to Elizabeth's sister, makes notable mention of her inferior status as he asks for her hand. After being verbally scorned and put in his proper place by Elizabeth, Darcy leaves, but does not retire to sulk in idleness. As the novel goes on, Darcy takes several significant steps to change. He becomes more civil towards Elizabeth and her family and comes to the rescue of two of her sisters, including poor Jane, who finally gets to marry Mr. Bingley. Darcy starts out as a very prideful and stubborn character but becomes much more open and humble by the end. He allows Elizabeth's thoughts and observations to influence him, and he doesn't just talk the talk; he sets about making things right time and again. Darcy and Elizabeth are one of the best enemies-to-lovers in literature and a favorite for movie and TV adaptations. 1 George Knightley 'Emma' (1815) Image via Miramax Films If anyone deserves the blue ribbon for being the best role model for a Jane Austen romantic interest, it is George Knightley in Emma. Knightley proves over and over again in the book how he is sensible, kind, and selfless. He calls Emma out when she behaves rudely toward an older friend and persuades Harriet to reject Robert Martin's proposal. At every opportunity when Emma makes a blunder, Knightley is there having warned her before, during, or after. Despite his frustrations, he is always respectful and honest with Emma. Knightley continually puts Emma's needs ahead of his own. Even though he disliked Frank Churchill, he did not say anything because he thought Emma cared for him. At the end of the book, Knightley agrees to leave his home and move in with Emma and her father after they are married because she does not want to leave him alone. Knightley only ever loved Emma for exactly who she was, first as a friend and then as a romantic partner. Emma Release Date August 2, 1996 Runtime 121 minutes Cast Gwyneth Paltrow Emma Woodhouse Writers Douglas McGrath Producers Bob Weinstein, Donna Gigliotti, Harvey Weinstein, Patrick Cassavetti