Jane Austen discussion

It's not Jane Austen but the language is reminiscent of hers and it deals with a genteel English family--and it's also thoroughly wicked: Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner. Themes teenage girls might like, particularly that of an overlooked young woman breaking free from the restrictions imposed on her family. (Of course, she does take things a little far, signing a pact with a Pan-like god--not exactly the devil--and becoming a happy witch!) Published early in the twentieth century but has an older feel to it.

James

You (and they) might enjoy my book about the other side of JA's novel P&P -

Darcy's Story by Janet Aylmer

My web site is - www.janetaylmer.com

James wrote: "This is about high school students, mostly female, whose prior reading was either Hunger Games, Divergent, Twilight, etc. or nothing. I convinced them to read Pride and Prejudice. As one would expe..."

What about Jane Eyre? Passionate, romantic, gothic subplot, with a strong female protagonist...

I would suggest Emily Eden who btw was a fan of Austen. Her The Semi-Attached Couple and the Semi-Detached House are witty & sparkling.

I would suggest Northanger Abbey. The main character is a teenage girl who is so fixed on the popular gothic novels of the day (the equivalent of today's graphic and fantasy novels) that it affects her perception of reality.
A modern (when it was written, not the setting) series that I'd recommend would be the Fremont Jones mysteries by Dianne Day. Set at the turn of the 19th/20th century, the main character is a young independent woman who leaves a sedate life in Boston to take a job as a "type writer" in San Francisco.

J. wrote: "I would suggest Northanger Abbey. The main character is a teenage girl who is so fixed on the popular gothic novels of the day (the equivalent of today's graphic and fantasy novels) that it affects..."

More the equivalent of Twilight and the other YA books they're already reading than fantasy and graphic novels surely...? Although I've read The Mysteries of Udolpho and Twilight is definitely better.

James, I would recommend Terry Pratchett's Discworld, very different from Jane Austen in content but written with her kind of genius for describing human behaviour. They're set in a fantasy world but parody ours, and though there's a lot of them and do have recurring characters they are all individual stories with a lot of strong female characters.

James

If you want your students to know more about the context for books about the Georgian period, try this web page -

https://www.janetaylmer.com/julia%20e...

A lot of people who like Jane Austen also like Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South.

Georgette Heyer, obviously. Not high brow literature but fun and funny romantic plots.

Angela Thirkell is more of a 20th century Jane Austen with "three or four families in a country village" settings. Along the same lines is D.E. Stevenson. Some of her books seem inspired by Jane Austen.

There are tons of Austen retellings, sequels and spin-offs, including Bridget Jones's Diary.

BTW, I was visiting the Dean Street Press Web site earlier today and saw they have published some charming-looking editions of D. E. Stevenson novels I had never heard of! I should mention it in the Retro Reads group as well.

My favourite Georgette Heyer book is "Frederica".

Have you read the biography of Georgette Heyer by Jennifer Kloester?

ISBN - 978-0099553281

or her other book -

Georgette Heyer's Regency World

ISBN - 978-0099478720

Abigail wrote: "BTW, I was visiting the Dean Street Press Web site earlier today and saw they have published some charming-looking editions of D. E. Stevenson novels I had never heard of! I should mention it in th..."

I love D.E. Stevenson's novels. Miss Buncle's Book is PERFECTION. It's a bit like reading about a Jane Austen in the 1930s!

For Victorian era literature, Anthony Trollope was a big fan of Jane Austen. Angela Thirkell was a fan of Trollope and Austen. Miss Mackenzie is very Austenesque.

My high school librarian introduced me to the historical young adult fiction of Rosemary Sutcliff almost 50 years ago, starting with her Arthurian novel Sword at Sunset , then the Roman Britain trilogy beginning with Eagle of the Ninth, which was recently made into two very different movies, The Eagle, and before that the much more bloody effort, The Centurion. I'm not sure if teens and young adults would even give them a second look, now that they can read things like Fifty Shades or the latest Star-Crossed vampire lovers treatment. Because I was disabled, I really enjoyed reading about Sutcliff's young characters , usually male characters with injuries or other things that made them outcasts from their society. In some of her books there is often a female character who is friends with the male lead. Usually, there's not a romantic outcome, but it still gave me hope that there might be such an outcome for me someday. Her novels, Knight's Fee and Flame-colored Taffeta featured such relationships. I'm currently reading her retelling of the Robin Hood legends. Rosemary Sutcliff was disabled by arthritis from a very young age, so she was home-schooled and suffered a great deal of isolation due to Medical Treatments. I was lucky enough to get to correspond with her for a Time before she passed away in 1992.

A young library coworker introduce me to Jane Austen, I believe in the mid-to-late 1990s, for which I will be ever grateful. My favorites were and still are Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. I have tried to read several of the others with less compelling desire to finish them. I'm not sure why. My favorite version of the movies are Persuasion 1995 and Pride and Prejudice 1995, because of the wonderful performances and beauty of Anne Root and Jennifer Ehle (and the breathtakingly lovely actress who played Jane, whose name I can't remember at the moment) respectively.

What a nice story, Stephen, about the role of Sutcliff's book and the author herself in your life! Thank you for sharing what they meant for you.

I think high schoolers would enjoy my sequel to P&P that tells the story of Kitty Bennet after P&P leaves off. "Her Summer at Pemberley" is somewhat a coming-of-age story featuring a few of the P&P characters (including Georgiana) and a cast of new characters and adventures. I also think Georgette Heyer would be fun for them. I loved Mary Stolz's "The Seagulls Woke Me," (set in the 50s) but it seems to be out of print.

I read a good few Rosemary Sutcliffe novels as a child, and enjoyed them, though they could be quite sad. They were educational as well as it taught me a lot about history.

An author I devoured as a young teen (but not sure how well the novels have dated!) is Jean Plaidy, from whom I learn a huge amount of history. Basically, what was so good about her, was that she wrote, effectively 'Herstory'....as in, lots of history but always from the point of view of a female character (nearly always queens or princesses!)

She just about tells all of western European history from the Norman conquest through to the French Revolution (I always remember the title of the Marie Antoinnette story was 'Flaunting Extravagant Queen'!), and lots on the Tudors ('Royal Road to Fotheringay' etc).

She was, for me, a very digestible way of learning history - and of course of giving the vital 'feminine slant' to it, to show that women, even if not emphasised in traditional history lessons, still played key roles in events.

I'd also strongly recommend for teenage (girls, mostly I would think?) the novels of Eva Ibbotson. She is a 'mixed age' author, as she wrote books for young children (primary school age), and then what I simply considered 'rom coms' for grown up women. Later, she wrote a couple of clearly Young Adult novels, where the protagonists are teenagers.

However, her adult-rom-coms (where the protagonists are all grown ups) have been labelled and remarketed as YA now, and while that is good for teenage readers, it has 'lost' her I fear mainstream grownup readership as newcomers will think her novels are not for them!

The rom-coms are definitely readable by teens, though, and I'd have loved them had they been available when I was a teenager (well, probably from about 15 onwards ,as they are about 'lurve' etc).

What is absolutely unique about Ibbotson is her voice, and her background. She has a wonderful writing style (a bit marmite I concede, but if you do like it, you'll love it!), but what I find most magical is her settings. She was Viennese by birth, but her family fled the Nazis and she grew to adulthood in England, and married and lived here after the war.

Her books are all celebrations of 'Mittel-Europa' - the Central Europe that starts at the Austrian border, and ends in the Balkans/Mediterranean. (One exception is 'The Countess Below Stairs' - which I think has a new title now - several were retitled for the YA market and also to update them - where the heroine has fled the Russian Revolution and now works as a (very unusual!) maid in an English stately home).

Some of her novels are based in Vienna/Austria, but some in created 'Ruritanias' nearby.

At least two (one YA, one romcom) are set in Amazonia, which is definitely a bit different!

Not many books truly warrant the label 'enchanting', but Eva Ibbotson's do.

Please give them a go! (There are some reviews on Good Reads - I've done one recently, having indulged myself in an Ibbotson 'binge' during lockdown!)

PS - she's very musically cultural, if that is an appeal (lots about opera and 'Great Composers' etc)

I'd most definitely recommend Georgette Heyer. So often copied, so seldom successfully! She remains the first and the best and absolutely unique and irreplaceable!

Daddy Long Legs by webster

I found pride and prejudice style, i.e. Jane Austen's, worthy of reflection. Namely, the syntactical arrangement of sentences seems to me somehow clever and the old-fashioned vocabulary fascinating. Take a look at this reflections here https://tomcaraceni.medium.com/curios...

Tommaso - thank you.

Just to say though, that 'fortnight' is still very much in use in contemporary English....in England that is! I believe in America it is not.

Curiously, 'sennight', the abbreviation for seven nights, has disappeared in England. We just say 'week' now.

I just learned the other day that fortnight was an abbreviation for fourteen nights. So what you’re saying about sennight makes perfect sense. I hadn’t yet connected the dots, so thank you!

Beth-In-UK wrote: "Tommaso - thank you.

Just to say though, that 'fortnight' is still very much in use in contemporary English....in England that is! I believe in America it is not.

Curiously, 'sennight', the abbre..."

Dear Beth, thank you for the feedback, I was rushing to jot my impressions. I will revise it. Cheers

Well, if you're writing for Americans, then fortnight is indeed archaic to them!

I'm not sure when sennight dropped out of the English vernacular. Austen uses I think from time to time if I recall correctly?

Another odd one is 'weekend'. From what I've gathered along the way, the term only dates from the late Victorians, if that. I suppose it was because there was 'no' weekend, as in, Saturday was a working day (and could remain so right into the middle of the last century) (employers weren't very keen on giving employees time off.)

So Sunday was the only non-work day - and that was supposed to be spent largely at church.

As we know, the upper classes firmly believed that if the workers had too much leisure they would only go down to the pub, get drunk and get into fights....they were too 'ignorant' to know what to do with their leisure time otherwise....(!!!!!)

For posh folks who never worked even one day a week, let alone six, they did start visiting friends for overnight stays that were the equivalent of 'our' weekend - but they called them Friday-to-Mondays. I believe 'weekend' was considered very middle class at best and vulgar at worst.

Does the term 'weekend' occur in Jane Austen at all? That would be an indicator whether it was or wasn't in use at the time?

I don't think it does.

When at Netherfield Elizabeth, Bingley & Darcy discuss about "resolution and yielding", Bingley says "I declare I do not know a more awful object than Darcy, on particular occasions, and in particular places; at his own house especially, and of a Sunday evening, when he has nothing to do."

Beth-In-UK wrote: "Does the term 'weekend' occur in Jane Austen at all? That would be an indicator whether it was or wasn't in use at the time?"

"What is a weekend?" - Lady Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham, Downton Abbey Season 1 episode 1

To a Victorian and Edwardian upper class person, "Weekend" is a vulgar Americanism that implies one must work for a living. "The Saturday to Monday" is what Lady Mary uses to denote the days for a weekend house party.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary :
"also week-end, 1630s, from week + end (n.). Originally a northern word (referring to the period from Saturday noon to Monday morning); it became general after 1878. As an adjective, "only on weekends," it is recorded from 1935. Long weekend attested from 1900; in reference to Great Britain in the period between the world wars, 1944."

Ah so one said 'Saturday to Monday', not 'Friday to Monday' - thank you.

As for Darcy, bored and irritated on a Sunday evening (probably exacerbated by having had to sit through a tedious sermon earlier that day as well) could well have been an 'awful object' by then. Mind you, how he put up with the dreadful Bingley sisters anyway has always astonished me (not to mention the dire husband!) (Putting up with them has always seemed to me proof of his strong fondness for their hapless brother, Mr Bingley.)(I do wonder how they met - was it at school, university, social life in London, does JA ever say?)

PS - Re Downton Abbey. Good old Maggie!!! :):) (Has she ever played Lady Bracknell I wonder? She'd ace it!) (Far better than the miscast Judy Dench in the Colin Firth/Rupert Everett update a while back)

In case you are interested about some issues about "observing the Sabbath" there's Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers. One of my favourite novels. :)

Google's English Dictionary, which is provided by Oxford Languages, shows a graph presenting the popularity of every word over the last two centuries. 'Weekend' is shown to be inexistitent until about 1925

Beth-In-UK wrote: "(Putting up with them has always seemed to me proof of his strong fondness for their hapless brother, Mr Bingley.)(I do wonder how they met - was it at school, university, social life in London, does JA ever say?)"

I don't think Austen ever does tell us how they happened to become friends, but it's unlikely, I think, to have been a meeting at school or university considering their age difference.

Beth-In-UK wrote: "Does the term 'weekend' occur in Jane Austen at all? That would be an indicator whether it was or wasn't in use at the time?"

I cannot find weekend in any of Jane Austen's novels. I am using the searching feature found at pemberley.com to do the search. Sennight is in several of her books, but it is spelled "se'nnight". It is found in P&P, Emma, and Northanger Abbey.

pemberley.com is a great resource!

Emilia wrote: "Beth-In-UK wrote: "(Putting up with them has always seemed to me proof of his strong fondness for their hapless brother, Mr Bingley.)(I do wonder how they met - was it at school, university, social..."

Emilia,
I have long wondered how Darcy and Bingley met. P&P says absolutely nothing about it that I can find and I don't think most readers pick up on the age difference as you have. We know that in his letter to Elizabeth, Darcy mentions he is 28 and this is April in the year after they meet (supposedly 1812).

But earlier in the book, when Bingley is first introduced to the reader, we are indirectly told his age, too. " Mr. Bingley had not been of age two years, when he was tempted by an accidental recommendation to look at Netherfield House. He did look at it, and into it, for half an hour -- was pleased with the situation and the principal rooms, satisfied with what the owner said in its praise, and took it immediately." So at the beginning of the book Bingley is 23 and Darcy is probably 27. So it is very unlikely they would have met at university.

Bingley is of a family from the North and of course eventually buys an estate in the next county to Derbyshire. Could they have somehow met near or in Derbyshire? It is also possible they met in town socially. Its probably safe to say that Miss Bingley did not introduce them. She is so obnoxious that Darcy never would have agreed to meet her brother!

But it is interesting to think about! Can anyone else think of quotes from the book that hint at an answer?

Shana wrote: "Its probably safe to say that Miss Bingley did not introduce them. She is so obnoxious that Darcy never would have agreed to meet her brother!"

Lol very true! Nor is Georgiana old enough for her to have been friends with one of Bingley's sisters to have facilitated an introduction.

I really think they must have met in town, possibly through mutual friends, and as their characters are co complimentary, they must have felt a natural affinity for one another. It is interesting to imagine this first meeting, because Darcy is, famously, not great with strangers. But then Bingley very much is!

Their meeting in town is as good of a theory as any other. Bingley never seemed intimidated or affronted by Darcy's stiff manners or reserve. Bingley teased him on several occasions; once when he tried to get him to dance at the Meryton Assembly and another time at Netherfield when he was describing Darcy as a miserable object on a Sunday at his house with nothing to do. So they were complimentary in a way, each with something to teach the other.

I have to say I hadn't realised there was such an age gap between Bingley and Darcy - I'd thought them pretty much of an age. I think it's actually quite significant to the plot, now I think about it.

Firstly, it makes Bingley and Jane very nearly the same age - I can't quite remember how old Jane is, but about 21/22?

Secondly, Darcy is the same age as Charlotte Lucas (and, as an aside, as Anne Eliot in Persuasion), which I think can highlight how the same chronological age has such diffierent impact depending on your gender - Anne and Charlotte are very nearly 'past it' in terms of marrying, whereas, to us, Bingley, at 23, would seem far too young to marry at all!

Thirdly, in terms of Bingley's and Darcy's friendship for each other, it is a little odd - they are so very different, and if they hadn't been thrown together by being the same age, whether at school or university, I do wonder that they ever became friends.

However, clearly they appeal to one another, but I do think their significant difference in age (we are very different, I would say, at 27 from what we were at 23!) does lend emphasis to why Darcy is both so protective of him, and so highhanded with him, when it comes to deliberately separating him from Jane.

Finally, I wonder if there is any mileage in speculating that Bingley is a substitute for Wickham?? Darcy and Wickham do seem to have grown up together (how old is Wickham - the Colin Firth TV version shows a fictitious flashback of the two of them at Oxford, when Darcy is telling Elizabeth how loose-moralled Wickham was), but once Wickham has totally proven his worthlessness to Darcy, maybe it's not surprising that Darcy finds, as I say, a kind of younger-brother-substitute in Bingley??

Beth-In-UK wrote: "how old is Wickham - the Colin Firth TV version shows a fictitious flashback of the two of them at Oxford, when Darcy is telling Elizabeth how loose-moralled Wickham was"

That's pretty true to the book, although he doesn't mention going to Cambridge with Wickham, we know Darcy's farther supported Wickham through Cambridge, and they are of a similar age. From his letter to Elizabeth:

The vicious propensities—the want of principle, which he was careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself, and who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which Mr. Darcy could not have.

I believe Jane is ca 22/23, and Elizabeth 21. Bingley and Jane are very close in age.

I agree about Bingley and Darcy's relationship. It feels like that of a protective older brother with his favourite younger brother. The fact that they can tease each other, but that Bingley still defers to Darcy in all important matters suggests this to me.

I also think that, on the whole, Darcy was probably less unpleasant when he met Bingley, if they did so in an environment that didn't set up his back. Darcy is particularly stiff and unfriendly when we first meet him, but then it is at a ball (which he doesn't like) among a tonne of strangers (whom he considers vulgar and whom he doesn't have an interest to know better). We are repeatedly told he's very different when among friends. And of course when we know him better by the end we learn he's quite capable of being friendly, welcoming, charming, pleasant etc. etc.

Bingley seems just the sort of lively, happy personality that Darcy is attracted to (not exclusively in terms of romance). Bingley, Elizabeth, Col. Fitzwilliam... it seems natural that they should have got on. He seems to like people who are not as introverted and reticent as he is himself.

Emilia wrote: "Beth-In-UK wrote: "how old is Wickham - the Colin Firth TV version shows a fictitious flashback of the two of them at Oxford, when Darcy is telling Elizabeth how loose-moralled Wickham was"

That's..."
Agreed. I think the age gap exacerbates the difference in personalities between the two men. Darcy is 28 by the end of the story and his father has been dead for five years. So he has been in charge of Pemberley and the co-guardian of a sister ten years his junior for five years. I think he has a pretty full plate for one so "young". Bingley, on the other hand, though younger, has only had access to his father's fortune for two years at most (we don't actually know how long ago the elder Mr. Bingley died). And the Bingley fortune almost certainly was not tied up in land or an estate. It sounded as though it was in investments. But if its all tucked away in the funds, then Bingley just gets quarterly checks from the government. One of his sisters is married and the other is roughly his age. Bingley has very little responsibility, frankly. And given his lack of interest in furthering his father's meager collection of books, I doubt he was a top scholar while he was at university.

Darcy of course is more cordial towards people he knows or who he thinks are worth his time. But he clearly looks out for Bingley. Whether this is an older/younger brother thing or even more of a father/son thing, I don't know. And father/son doesn't have to be an overstatement. Both of their fathers were clearly intelligent men. But I am guessing that Bingley received very little training from his likely workaholic father who made the family fortune in trade and then clearly intended to protect his children from the 'smell of shop' social stigma (is that the right British term?). Otherwise, he never would have sold his business, he would have left it to his only son who would have known how to run it. The younger Bingley shows no such business acumen. So Darcy could have a rather protective, paternalistic outlook for his friend.

I am not sure that Bingley is a substitute for Wickham as Beth-in-UK mentions, although it could be true. I feel that Darcy truly sees Bingley as a friend; thought a friend in need of some guidance. I think, and say if you disagree, but it has been many years since Darcy saw Wickham as anything but a responsibility.

Shana wrote: "I am not sure that Bingley is a substitute for Wickham as Beth-in-UK mentions, although it could be true. I feel that Darcy truly sees Bingley as a friend; thought a friend in need of some guidance. I think, and say if you disagree, but it has been many years since Darcy saw Wickham as anything but a responsibility."

Totally agree about Wickham. I think it is reasonable to assume that the rift between Darcy and Wickham would have started around the time they went to university, because that was (probably) the first time they were both at liberty to do what their natures dictated. Before then they'd be under the eye of tutors or parents. So I think it is like you say, it would have been around 5-8 years, by the time we meet them in P&P, when they stopped being friends.

Also, I love your Bingley analysis! I agree with all of it. Also interesting to point out that, though Bingley's fortune is from trade, Darcy is not too proud or haughty to be his friend. A first hint from Austen to the reader, perhaps, that Darcy is not all he seems?

Darcy is certainly not an easy man to read upon first acquaintance. When Elizabeth tours Pemberley and sees his portrait, he has a big smile on his face. But the portrait was done when his father was still alive. It makes me wonder if the last five years were particularly difficult for him; the loss of his father, all of his new responsibilities for the estate, his guardianship of his sister, watching Wickham lose all restraint once both their fathers were dead, not to mention his obligation to get married and have an heir. It is certainly possible he was not always so cold and aloof.

I fully agree with all the above very astute well observed points!

Are we to undertstand that think Darcy and Wickham were , intimate as boys/teens/young men, until Darcy saw Wickham 'let loose' at Cambridge etc?

Iin that quote:

"The vicious propensities—the want of principle, which he was careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself, and who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which Mr. Darcy could not have" I can only take that 'his best friend' can only be Darcy? If so, the sentence doesn't quite make sense, does it, followed by the 'escape the observation' comment - unless we are to read it as meaning Darcy WAS 'best friends' with young Wickham, but was rudely disillusioned once Wickham was let loose to show his true character.

I think quite a lot rests on just how much Darcy and Wickham were friends, or rather, perhaps, how much Darcy considered Wickham his friend, when they were young.

First off, we need to remember that Wickham was not the same social class as Darcy (son of the Pemberley steward, is that it?), so there was always going to be disparity there that could be 'awkward'. To have one's own father showing such favour to a relatively disadvantaged peer could cause tensions - on the one part young Fitzwilliam could have morally approved of his father taking Wickham under his patronage, but on the other he might have seen Wickham as an 'interloper' etc. It is, and I would say remains to this day perhaps, 'tricky' to have friends who are in very different circles of life, especially when the 'better off' side has done material favours for the less well off. Where does friendship stop and obligation begin (to adapt Aunt Gardiner's percipient commenteto Lizzy about prudence vs avarice!)

However, if, indeed, Fitzwilliam and (George?) Wickham were genuine boyhood friends, then I think it also shows that Darcy isn't the snob he looks when we first see him - he genuinely is prepared to be friends with someone not his social equal, so that is a 'good' sign about him. As indeed, as pointed out above, is his willingness to be friends with Bingley later on, despite the 'smell of the shop' (yes, a very familiar, if now old-fashioned, saying in English!) (The old 'horror of trade' is so ironic, really, considering the fortunes of Britain were built on trade!!!!)

Also, if Darcy really had been genuine friends with Wickham, then, despite his general disillusion with Wickham once his true character had started to emerge at Cambridge, then Wickham's hideous plot to ruin Georgiana must have hurt Darcy, not just angered him.

I suspect, too, it probably scared Darcy too - I mean, as, again, pointed out above, he'd had to take over guardianship for his sister at a very young age, and he had very, very, very nearly totally muffed it - his sister nearly had her life completely ruined. It was a 'damn near run thing' that Darcy got wind of it just in time....his blood must have run cold at how close a call it had been.

Beth-In-UK wrote: "Iin that quote:

"The vicious propensities—the want of principle, which he was careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself, and who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which Mr. Darcy could not have" I can only take that 'his best friend' can only be Darcy? If so, the sentence doesn't quite make sense, does it, followed by the 'escape the observation' comment - unless we are to read it as meaning Darcy WAS 'best friends' with young Wickham, but was rudely disillusioned once Wickham was let loose to show his true character."

I think in this quote Mr Darcy is talking about his father. So he is saying:

The vicious propensities—the want of principle, which he was careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend [Mr Darcys's father], could not escape the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself [Fitzwilliam Darcy], and who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which Mr. Darcy [Mr Darcy's father] could not have

It's a little convoluted because of the respectful way he refers to his dad.

I think that Wickham being a man of lively character and pleasing manners would have found it easy to overcome Darcy's introverted nature and to be his friend when they were still young, but as they began to grow up (probably even before university), Wickham's dissolute nature would have, I think, really irked and chafed Darcy, who is very honourable and good.

Later in the letter, Darcy says that Wickham wanted to elope with Georgiana not just for her fortune but also as a revenge against him. That line always made me wonder. Is this about the living in Kympton and the fact that Darcy gave him one sum of money and then never any more? Or is there something deeper there?

Beth-In-UK wrote: "I fully agree with all the above very astute well observed points!

Are we to undertstand that think Darcy and Wickham were , intimate as boys/teens/young men, until Darcy saw Wickham 'let loose' ..."

I completely agree with all the issues you both have raised, Beth and Emilia. I concur that 'his best friend' refers to Mr. George Darcy who had taken a very strong liking to George Wickham as a child. George Wickham was after all his god-son and was the son of the elder Mr. Darcy's very capable steward, old Mr. Wickham. It was common in those days to take good care of the family of your steward, especially a very capable one.

Fitzwilliam Darcy is the 'young man of nearly the same age' who is not referred to as a friend of George Wickham and is well placed to see many examples George Wickham's improper tendancies. I have no doubt they started as boyhood friends, but the question with the unknowable answer is how quickly Fitzwilliam Darcy figured out that in spite of having an excellent father and an excellent benefactor, George Wickham has a devious and dissolute nature.

I have always wondered if the younger Darcy ever tried to warn his father about Wickham and why on earth he never warned his sister after their father's death (these issues are explored in my next book, which is barely in manuscript form currently, lol).

I think that the younger Darcy's good character is on display with his willingness to be boyhood friends with the son of his father's steward until such time that Wickham had more fully exposed his true self. But this does not ruin Darcy of having these sorts of cross-class friendships, as demonstrated by his friendship with Bingley. And it would seem that Bingley is currently one of his closest friends outside of Colonel Fitzwilliam. What I find interesting about this friendship with Mr. Bingley are the hints in the book that Darcy is considering promoting a marriage between Mr. Bingley and Georgiana. This would truly show Mr. Darcy's lack of snobbery because the Bingley family fortune is from trade and Mr. Bingley's sisters are not perfect specimens of decorum and politeness; they can be rather nasty. I am curious whether either of you has considered the possibility of Mr. Darcy promoting this match. Miss Bingley, of course writes of it in her letters to Jane. This could be wishful thinking. Elizabeth and Jane discuss this possibility several times. On the day Elizabeth meets Georgiana, Mr. Bingley is there and Elizabeth carefully looks for signs of partiality on either side, but finds none. But when Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner wait upon Georgiana at Pemberley (Vol 3,Chp 3) here is what the narrator says,

"Not a syllable had ever reached her [Miss Bingley] of Miss Darcy's meditated elopement. To no creature had it been revealed, where secresy was possible, except to Elizabeth; and from all Bingley's connections her brother [Mr. Darcy] was particularly anxious to conceal it, from the very wish which Elizabeth had long ago attributed to him, of their becoming hereafter her [Miss Darcy's] own. He had certainly formed such a plan, and without meaning that it should affect his endeavor to separate him [Mr. Bingley] from Miss Bennet, it is probable that it might add something to his lively concern for the welfare of his friend.

From my annotated P&P, David M. Shepard clearly states that Darcy did want to promote a marriage between his friend and his sister, which I always thought surprising. With her dowry and her connections I always supposed that Darcy could carefully select from much more prominent members of society than Mr. Bingley ever would be. It even seemed reasonable that Georgiana would have enough men to choose from that she would be able to marry for affection. Perhaps Mr. Darcy was trying to shield his sister from the rigours of the marriage market by setting her up with such an amiable friend?

I think that's very interesting Shana! I always read this as being yet another example of how Darcy just isn't what he seems. He was willing to marry Elizabeth, and he looks favourably on a match between Georgiana and Mr Bingley because (in my interpretation) he doesn't actually care as much about rank and wealth as Elizabeth thinks. Or rather, these things matter to him, but not more than character and disposition.

I also think that he probably weighed the advantage of having a lively, happy, extroverted husband for Georgiana (who is meek and shy herself), but who is, at the same time, respectable and decent and kind. A rare find indeed!

And this leads me to Darcy's first proposal to Elizabeth. I always read it as him angrily capitulating to lust (and I'd read this interpretation elsewhere as well), but what we are discussing makes me wonder whether in fact his proposal was already then more than that. Whether his anger and resentment was not because Elizabeth was not the daughter of a duke with a hundred thousand pounds in dowry, but because her family is vulgar and to attach himself to them was a dear price to pay for love.

Hmm, lots more to ponder!

OK, so the 'best friend' of Wickham is actually Darcy's father - just seems odd to call someone a generation older a 'best friend', but that does make more sense in terms of the eventual relationship between Wickham and Darcy.

I think it can help, when we consider what the boyhood relationship was between Darcy and Wickham, to remember how Austen deals with the arrival of Fanny Price at Mansfield Park. The dreadful Aunt Norris is adamant that Fanny Price is NOT the social equal of her first cousins, and that is, after all, a family relationship, not merely one between a valued trusted employee and their very rich employer (steward and landowner). Fanny Price is, urges Aunt Norris, 'inferior' to her cousins.

This is partly pretty spiteful (good old Aunt Norris!), and because AN is obviously 'not on the side of good' for Austen (her indulgence of Maria is one of the key reasons Maria ends up ruining her own life and bringing shame to her whole family)(interestingly, Maria's 'ruin' doesn't seem to 'ruin' her family....whereas Lydia's 'ruin' would have ruined the Bennets - is that because the Bertrams are just that much richer??)

But Aunt Norris has a good point in a way, and makes it - that if Fanny is encouraged to think she is 'as good as' Maria and Julia, it will do her a disservice long term, precisely because she has been 'raised above' not just her station, but more importantly, her fortune. If Fanny thinks herself as good as her cousins, it will raise expectations in her that her lack of fortune will soon cause disappointment. (There are shades here, perhaps of Dido Belle in real life - never as good as her white, legitimate cousin - and even of Miss Lambe, in Sanditon, whose disadvantage of being 'mulatto' - apols, but I think that is in the Austen text?? - is mitigated by her being an heiress....!!!)

All of this is by way of saying that in fact, Darcy Senior's favouring of his steward's son might not have done Wickham any real favours long term. It could easily have raised his expectations, created a sense of entitlement, and bred resentment as he realised that, for all his godfather's favour, he was always going to be 'poor' compared with the rich young son of the house Darcy.

I can see how George Wickham could come to feel 'hard done by' (!) and especially after his godfather had died, and had been replaced by the much harder-to-gull Fitzwilliam...

Wickham has aspirations above his station and fortune, and the favour done to him by his god-father has not helped him. It's made him an 'adventurer' (shade of Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair!). I think he wants to be 'revenged' on Darcy by eloping with Georgiana simply because Darcy is the rich landowner who 'got it all' and Wickham feels hard done by.

OK, so would Darcy like Georgiana to marry Bingley? Bingley's ghastly sisters obviously want it (and boy, so they make that obvious!), mainly to give Miss Bingley a chance to become so much closer to poor old Darcy.

I agree that Darcy would be reassured to have his shy young sister married to such a decent bloke, who also isn't after her fortune. She'd be in 'safe hands', though I suspect Darcy would know he'd have to keep an eye on both of them thereafter, eg, that percipient comment by Mr Bennet that Jane and Bingley will be cheated by all their servants!

The other obvious candidate for Georgiana is Colonel Fitzwilliam, who, although not rich, is a first cousin (remember, first cousin marriages are neither illegal nor socially scandalous in the UK). He too would 'look after' Georgiana and be a safe pair of hands.

However, maybe Darcy simply thinks Georgiana too young to marry for a few years - she'll always be marriagable because of her fortune, so she won't be left on the shelf. As a responsible older brother he would be well advised not to rush her into any marriage too young.

"Whether his anger and resentment was not because Elizabeth was not the daughter of a duke with a hundred thousand pounds in dowry, but because her family is vulgar and to attach himself to them was a dear price to pay for love"

Yes, I agree. It was the vulgarity of the Bennets that put him off, not their poverty relative to his wealth.