Wednesday 2nd October

Bingley went to town today. It is as I thought. He will never settle in the country. Already he is growing restless. I will not be surprised if he quits Netherfield before Christmas.

As a fan of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, I have occasionally wondered about Mr. Darcy’s views on the events that take place during the course of the book. As if answering my inquiry, I discovered Mr. Darcy’s Diary, by Amanda Grange, an author of historical fiction. The first few pages were promising; in the format of a diary, they easily expressed what could believably be Darcy’s feelings, and paralleled with the events of Pride and Prejudice quite well – something I had worried over, seeing as Pride and Prejudice is technically told from Elizabeth’s perspective. During the events Mr. Darcy was not present for in Pride and Prejudice, he still manages to get information about them, usually in the form of gossip, as in the event of Mr. Collins’s offer of marriage to Elizabeth, and we still gain perspective on his feelings on the matters.

As a fan of the character specifically, I did have quite a few fears regarding the expression of Mr. Darcy’s personality – because while we learn that he, like Elizabeth, is proud, and that he loves his sister Georgiana very much, we don’t actually get much insight about him in the original novel, which leaves much up to the author’s imagination (often, I’ve found, much to my chagrin). In the case of Mr. Darcy’s Diary, I did find that the amount of emotion Darcy expresses surprised me at first, but upon reflecting on it, it’s a pleasant surprise, and not very far from what one might imagine from Darcy. He still holds true to Jane Austen’s Darcy, and still has many of his prejudices against country folk and those of “inferior breeding”, which lead to uncomfortable revelations for him as his affections for Elizabeth grow.

There is a small glimpse into what life might have been like after they were married, and this is where, inevitably, things begin to sound – odd. Obviously Jane Austen never showed us what happened after they married; it was a good old happily ever after, for the most part. It’s still happily ever after for Mr. Darcy’s Diary, and an enjoyable one, but one can’t help wondering if his character was pushed a little to far.

All in all, Mr. Darcy’s Diary is an enjoyable, well written read, both for someone who has never read Pride and Prejudice, and for those die-hard fans who’ve memorized its well loved pages with a never-ending zeal.