No wonder he served as her literary inspiration
Bookworm on Jun 10 2008 at 8:21 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
I couldn’t resist a minute to blog about this one: An exquisite miniature of Tom Lefroy has emerged in England. He is the man nobody knows under his real name, but everyone knows under his immortal literary alter ego: Fitzwilliam Darcy. Thus, while it’s not 100% certain that he served as Jane Austen’s model for that character, it’s pretty darn certain. As you can see from this picture, painted in 1798, he was a very good looking young man by any standards. Couple those good looks with the fact that Jane found him charming, and you’ve got literary history in the making.
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Thank you, BW!! His handsome likeness has a calm seriousness that would lead him to become Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. In Austen’s letter to her sister, Cassandra, she related that she and her ‘Irish friend’ behaved ‘in a most profligate and shocking . . . way by dancing and sitting down together.’
Ummm…he looks like he’s in his twenties…but his hair is _gray_ (since we’re talking about Jane Austen, maybe that should be _grey_!) in fact, practically white. Doesn’t that seem odd?
Perhaps he was like Richard Gere or Steve Martin, and went white early. One of the most attractive men I ever met lost almost all his hair by the time he was 20.
Or maybe he went white burning the midnight oil studying for exams that led to his future life as Lord Chief Justice!
Looks like the Draco Malfoy character in the Harry Potter movies.