Posted on 03/11/2015 11:51:33 AM PDT by C19fan
It has sold more than 20 million copies since it was written two centuries ago and has had generations of schoolgirls swooning over the ultimate romantic hero. But the great unspoken background of Jane Austen's world is that both Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley in Pride and Prejudice got rich from the slave trade, says author Joanna Trollope. The novelist, speaking at the Festival of Literature in Dubai, dispelled the myth about Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley being the perfect men and described the 'very dark underbelly' to Austen's books. She said: 'Why does Mr Bingley in Pride and Prejudice have all this leisure to sort of drift between Netherfield and London?
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
No, like Obama’s love for America and Bill Clinton’s fidelity, Mr. Darcy is FICTIONAL.
Jane Austen’s two brothers were Post Captains in the Royal Navy. They made their money chasing Boney’s navy around the globe and in suppressing the slave trade.
I wonder what part of fictional they misunderstood?
Other than government service. :)
during his trips from the past to the present time and back Darcy took advantage of the insider type info he learnt about cattle futures etc. and played the stock market back in Netherfield..
why he was an early investor in BOAC.. everyone knows that..
Clan Obama is of the Muslim part of the Luo tribe. The Luo traditionally were the slave gatherers for the Arab slave trade headquartered in Mombasa and Lamu. Kenya was colonized in 1905, not all that long ago. The Obama ancestor who was arrested by the British more than likely was arrested for slave trading.
Suffice it to say that the Luo Muslims are not well liked in Kenya. The Kikuyu fear them, the Masai love killing them.
Mr. Darcy had his own email server in his basement, so what difference does it make?
Her next expose should be why the Hogwarts Express isn’t paying for use of the London rail system.
Wow, that was stupid.
No evidence was presented that the fortune of the characters was built on slavery. The closest is an evidence-free assumption that one man’s wealth is due to coal mining. By free Englishmen.
Englishmen got rich in a bunch of ways. The most common and prestigious was land ownership, usually inherited.
The income per year that is bandied about so freely in the books is quite specific in amount because it’s mostly rent from real estate that’s on longterm leases.
The wealthiest “new rich,” however, were normally plantation owners from the West Indies, or nabobs back from looting India. To become socially acceptable, most of them promptly invested their “ill-gotten” gains in English land. Other forms of wealth were looked down on. Being “in trade,” don’t you know.
” the Masai love killing them. “
Masai + 2
Trade in slaves was abolished 6 years before the book came out...
The Kenyan Obamas are both Muslim and Christians.
The Obama ancestor I believe you are referring to was his grandfather. While the records are vague, he was arrested in the 40s or 50s for anti-British activities, not slaving.
I have never seen any evidence that the Obama family was involved in the slave trade. If you have any, I’d like to see it.
“during his trips from the past to the present time and back Darcy took advantage of the insider type info”
And he married Marcy!
The author, clearly, knows little about the era she’s writing about. This is quite amazing.
Making money by trading or making stuff was looked down on. The gentry the book was about generally had their money invested in land. Their job was to spend the money they collected in rents.
People who actually made money generally invested it in land and then pretended they had inherited it. If it was a large enough sum, everybody went along with the hoax.
BTW, the author’s ignorance also shows in her apparently thinking one pound in 1800 would be worth twenty today. Don’t have time to look it up, but I can guarantee you it works out to a LOT more than that!
EDIT: Looked it up. Even using official inflation rates, it’s more like a pound then would be worth 100 today. And inflation calculators always underestimate the actual amounts.
There are a host of ways to compare values from era to era and it gets amazingly complicated. But that one pound might vary in value today from 70 to more than 4000! Depending on how you figure it.
Here’s a nifty calculator.
http://www.measuringworth.com/ppoweruk/
They also have a US version.
We gotta ban that book!
Ok, ban the book, but don’t ban the DVDs.
Colin Firth and David Rintoul are major hunks as Mr Darcy.
and then came Bridget Jones....
Anyway, I can’t believe a nitwit is attacking a classic like P&P. I wonder if she even read it.
Jane Austen took on slave labor in “Mansfield Park.”
I thought that the Darcy money came from tenant rents and work going on in Derbyshire, not from anything having to do with slave labor overseas.
True. The English upper classes had big money long before the sugar trade. Nobody would automatically assume that a rich person's fortune was based on sugar. Those whose money came from the West or East Indies were likely to be considered "new money."
Jane Austen took on slave labor in “Mansfield Park.”
The family patriarch takes off for Antigua to straighten out affairs. We can assume that they have a connection to sugar and slavery. I don't think the book actually mentions slavery, but it's what's in the background.
Jefferson Darcy?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.