Age
As Edward Ferrars is only 23 when the novel begins, Robert is likely around 21 and immediately out of University.
Family and Situation
Robert is the youngest son of Mrs. Ferrars and brother to Edward Ferrars and Mrs. Fanny Dashwood. We know Robert also has an uncle called Sir Robert, for whom -- we may conjecture -- he may have been named.
Robert appears to live with his mother and elder brother in Park Street, London, though the family may also have an ancestral home of some kind.
We know Robert attended Westminster public school, unlike his brother who has privately educated. This may reflect the growing means of his family during his childhood.
In the fallout from Edward’s disinheritance, Robert becomes endowed with ￡1,000 per anum, which Mrs. Ferrars doesn’t seem keen to undo, even after he marries Lucy. Presumably before this, Robert had at best the ￡2,000 his brother inherited, if not less.
Connections
Unlike Edward, Robert is very interested in the ton and frequently mentions his social connections. We know he knows a Lord Courtland and a Lady Elliott, both of whom he brings up upon first meeting Elinor.
After Edward is disinherited, there is talk of marrying Robert off to Miss Morton, so it is likely he knows her family.
Though Robert does ultimately marry Lucy, the narrator tells us there were “frequent domestic disagreements” between them.
Appearance
Though we know Edward is not much to look at, we have little information about Robert’s appearance. When Elinor first sees him in the jeweler’s shop, he leaves an impression of being “a person and face, of strong, natural, sterling insignificance, though adorned in the first style of fashion.”Later on, when they are introduced we are told “He addressed her with easy civility, and twisted his head into a bow which assured her as plainly as words could have done, that he was exactly the coxcomb she had heard him described to be by Lucy.”
Character
Well before we ever meet him, we are told that Robert has all the taste for flying in high society that his brother lacks. Robert even says as much to Elinor in a conversation during which he is “lamenting extreme GAUCHERIE which he really believed kept [his brother Edward] from mixing in proper society.” Robert feels he is the more polished brother because he attended public school.
Robert also shows himself to be quite particular, though often swept up in the fashions and fads of the moment. When Elinor first meets him, he is at a jeweler’s, ordering a toothpick case with extreme deliberation: “the correctness of his eye, and the delicacy of his taste, proved to be beyond his politeness. He was giving orders for a toothpick-case for himself, and till its size, shape, and ornaments were determined, all of which, after examining and debating for a quarter of an hour over every toothpick-case in the shop, were finally arranged by his own inventive fancy.” On a later occasion, he mentions consulting with him friends Lord Courtland who was looking to build an architectural plan “of Bonomi’s,” and insisting the man should build a cottage instead, reflecting the trendiness of romanticism at that moment.
Robert can also be cold and egotistical. Later in the novel, he expresses to Elinor that he finds it very humorous to imagine Edward as a country parson, having “ruined himself” but committing to Lucy. Later on, when Robert ends up married to Lucy, Edward is certain she must have played to his ego and flattered him into it.
Habits and Accomplishments
As was fashionable at the time, Robert appears to be an amateaur architect. In addition to the above-mentioned conversation with a friend about Bonomi, the narrator tells us that Robert spends his honeymoon in Dawlish where “he drew several plans for magnificent cottages.”
