27 Facts About Mr Darcy

Fitzwilliam Darcy Esquire, generally referred to as Mr Darcy, is one of the two central characters in Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice.

Mr Darcy is an archetype of the aloof romantic hero, and a romantic interest of Elizabeth Bennet, the novel's protagonist.

Mr Darcy first meets Elizabeth Bennet at a ball, where he makes rather demeaning remarks about her while she is within earshot.

Mr Darcy disapproves when his friend Bingley develops a serious attachment to Elizabeth's elder sister Jane, and persuades Bingley that Jane does not return his feelings.

Mr Darcy later explains this seeming hypocrisy by asserting, "I was kinder to [Bingley] than to myself".

Mr Darcy departs in anger and mortification; the next morning, he writes and hand delivers a letter to Elizabeth in which he defends his wounded honour, reveals the motives for his interference in Jane and Bingley's relationship, and gives a full account of his dealings with Wickham, who had attempted to seduce and elope with Mr Darcy's younger sister, Georgiana, the previous summer.

Elizabeth is first embarrassed to be discovered at Pemberley, having only visited on the belief that Mr Darcy was absent; however, she is surprised to discover a marked change in Mr Darcy's manner.

Mr Darcy felt partially responsible for failing to warn Elizabeth's family and the public of Wickham's true character.

The adaptation and Colin Firth's portrayal of Fitzwilliam Mr Darcy inspired Helen Fielding to write Bridget Jones's Diary and The Edge of Reason.

Mr Darcy is a proud and arrogant man, particularly to those that he considers of lower social status.

Mr Darcy chooses to involve himself in arranging Lydia's marriage, risking his own reputation.

At one point, Elizabeth notes that "Mr Darcy is all politeness" and speaks of his "grave propriety".

The term "grave propriety" is meant ironically, noting that Mr Darcy is polite, but only in the sense that he possesses the mere civility of "the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world".

Mr Darcy is fine, tall, handsome, noble, proud, forbidding, disagreeable and subject to no control but his own.

Nicolson further argued that a character like Mr Darcy reflects changes in British life as the Romantic age was a time when "What mattered was authentic, self-generated worth".

Mr Darcy is attracted to Elizabeth early on, but he sees her as unfit socially as a wife; however his feelings for her are such that he decides to forgo convention to marry the woman he loves, fitting him into the mould of a Romantic hero.

Mr Darcy is equally opposed to the "anarchistic tendencies" of Wickham on one hand and the "tyranny" of Lady Catherine on the other.

The scholar Alison Sulloway noted that Mr Darcy has little patience for polite society with its false courtesies and superficial talk, and much prefers to be running Pemberley or to be outdoors.

Mr Bingley cannot be the heir to a family library built up over generations like the one Mr Darcy is the heir to.

Barfoot argued that for Austen "civilization is not a gift, but is a possession that needs to be earned and sustained by practice"; in this regard, the fact that Mr Darcy takes good care of his estate shows his basically civilised nature which he hides under his veneer of snobbery and coldness.

Brown wrote that the readers in Austen's time would have known it had been an expensive burden for Mr Darcy to go off searching for Wickham and Lydia, and readers today almost miss the significance of Mr Darcy's financial sacrifice caused by his love for Elizabeth.

Morgan wrote that though Mr Darcy is rich, he does not represent "society" as some would have done, because he is reserved, vain, and quasi-isolated from society.

Morgan observed that for most of the novel Mr Darcy loves Elizabeth even when she loathes him and when she comes to return his feelings.

Morgan argued that the growth of Elizabeth's feelings for Mr Darcy is a sign of her intellectual growth, as she comes to understand that freedom means the freedom to appreciate and understand the value of love.

The character of Fitzwilliam Mr Darcy has appeared in and inspired numerous works.

In Bridget Jones's Diary and its sequel The Edge of Reason, Bridget Jones is constantly mentioning the 1995 BBC adaptation and repeatedly watches the scene in the fourth episode where Mr Darcy emerges from a pond wearing a wet white shirt, and refers to the Mr Darcy and Elizabeth of the TV series as "my chosen representatives in the field of shagging, or, rather, courtship".

On 9 July 2013, a 12-foot fibreglass statue of the figure of Mr Darcy emerging from the water was installed in the Serpentine Lake of London's Hyde Park for a promotion of British television's UKTV channel.