In Search of Mr. Darcy on BBC's The One Show

Phil Howe of Hidden Britain Tours wrote to tell us that this Friday, August 25, BBC’s The One Show will have a segment on whether Tom Lefroy was the real-life inspiration for Mr. Darcy. (If that sounds kind of familiar–it’s the premise of the upcoming film BECOMING JANE.) From the press release:

Some fans of Jane Austen believe that the character Mr Darcy could have been based on a certain Tom Lefroy, nephew of close friends and neighbours of Jane Austen. She met Tom Lefroy when he was visiting his aunt and uncle for Christmas and New Year 1795/6 at Ashe in the beautiful north Hampshire countryside. This is an area she referred to as “the neighbourhood” in both her letters and the hamlets and villages she fictionalised.

The BBC are also hot on the trail of the real Mr Darcy as a digression from their magnificent costume dramas based on her novels. With help from the Jane Austen House Museum, Chawton and Hidden Britain Tours, Dan Snow will be presenting a five minute piece which examines the hidden history that underlies the story of Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. The piece, called The History Hunter, goes out on The ONE Show at 6.55pm on Friday 25th August (BBC1).

Such has been the interest that Becoming Jane, a film about Jane Austen’s love life starring Julie Walters, Dame Maggie Smith, James McAvoy and Anne Hathaway, who recently starred in the Oscar winning Brokeback Mountain, is due for release in 2007. Yet so brief was Miss Austen’s and Mr Lefroy’s encounter that one wonders how the Hollywood film will reinvent history.

The History Hunter explains that Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy met only a few times over a two-week period in early January 1796. The first time was possibly at a monthly assembly in Basingstoke. On Tom Lefroy’s 20th birthday they met again at a ball hosted by the Harwoods of Deane House but held at Manydown House. It was followed by a social call to Steventon the next day. Their final meeting at was at a dance at Ashe Rectory on 15th January. Tom left for Ireland shortly after. Their greatest intimacy, so it seems, would have been no more than to dance and sit together.

Phil Howe of Hidden Britain Tours explains: ” Tom Lefroy was probably one of three suitors. At the time of their meeting he was studying law at Lincoln’s Inn and, unlike Mr Darcy, he was not a man of fortune. Ironically, his success led him to become Chief Justice of Ireland, although not in Jane Austen’s lifetime. It is likely that family interference killed any blossoming romance. Around seven years later she received a marriage proposal from Harris Bigg-Wither of Manydown, which she accepted, but broke off the engagement within 12 hours and made a hasty departure back to Bath. There was a third, holiday romance in Devon during the years she lived in Bath but the evidence is thin.”

Hidden Britain Tours visit Jane Austen’s “neighbourhood” as well as other secret parts of Hampshire. The Jane Austen Country tour gives a unique insight into the links between the letters, mostly to her sister Cassandra, and her literature. Managing Director Phil Howe works closely with the Jane Austen’s House Museum, Chawton which became her home after returning from Bath.

Phil adds, “It will be interesting to see how the makers of Becoming Jane interpret what was probably no more than a late adolescent infatuation. It will depend on whether the directors choose to base their characters on Jane’s letters or novels – fact or fiction. Some fans are already condemning it for developing a plot whose truth is not universally acknowledged by Austen experts.”

Perhaps it is a blessing that Jane Austen never formed a permanent union with any of her suitors. Had she settled down, married and had children it is unlikely that she would have ever had the time to create her great literature.

(Someone’s going to tape this and put it on YouTube for the Yanks, right? RIGHT?)