There are two parts to the myth on Jane Austen: that Austen was a star-crossed lover and that her romantic plots recast herself as their fictional heroines, transforming the bittersweet fruits of failed romance into happy endings. In this myth, Anne speaks the unrequited love that is “really” Austen's and is given the happy ending the author denied herself. This myth tells us much about how readerly attachment manifests as the desire for authorial autobiography, a desire so strong it sometimes sees autobiographical traces in every work Austen creates. In examining the myth, the figure of the quietly weeping Jane Austen who channels her desire into her heroines and leaves “her anxious and delicate presence within the persons of her dramas” are traced.