Thomas Langlois Lefroy
In 1796, Lefroy began a flirtation with English novelist Jane Austen, who was a friend of an older female relative. Jane Austen wrote two letters to her sister Cassandra mentioning "Tom Lefroy", and some have suggested that it may have been he whom Austen had in mind when she invented the character of Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice", as the courtship between Tom Lefroy and Jane Austen took place over the year or so that "Pride and Prejudice" was written. In his 2003 biography, "Becoming Jane Austen", Jon Spence suggests that Jane Austen actually used her and Tom LeFroy's personalities as the models for Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, but not in an expected way. Spence suggests that Jane Austen used Tom Lefroy's more gregarious personality as the model for the novel's heroine Elizabeth Bennet, and her own measured demeanor was used as the model for the male protagonist, Mr. Darcy. So while the exact influence of Tom Lefroy on "Pride and Prejudice" continues to be debated, it does seem certain that his presence in Austen's life is in some way reflected in the novel.
Styles and themes of Jane Austen
Jane Austen famously wrote to her nephew James Edward Austen that his "strong, manly, spirited Sketches, full of Variety and Glow" would not fit on "the little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush, as produces little effect after much labour." Austen novels have often been characterized as "country house novels" or as "comedies of manners". Comedies of manners are concerned "with the relations and intrigues of gentlemen and ladies living in a polished and sophisticated society" and the comedy is the result of "violations of social conventions and decorum, and relies for its effect in great part on the wit and sparkle of the dialogue." However, Austen's novels also have important fairy tale elements to them. "Pride and Prejudice" follows the traditional Cinderella plot while ""Persuasion" rewrites the Cinderella narrative, as it shifts the fairy tale's emphasis from the heroine's transformation into a beauty to the prince's second look at her face." However, Fanny, in "Mansfield Park", rejects the Prince Charming character and at least one scholar has suggested that in this Austen is signalling "a general attack on the dangers of 'fiction'".
Austen's novels can easily be situated within the 18th-century novel tradition. Austen, like the rest of her family, was a great novel reader. Her letters contain many allusions to contemporary fiction, often to such small details as to show that she was thoroughly familiar with what she read. Austen read and reread novels, even minor ones. She read widely within the genre, including many works considered mediocre both then and now, but tended to emphasize domestic fiction by women writers, and her own novels contain many references to these works. For example, the phrase "pride and prejudice" comes from Burney's "Cecilia", and the Wickham subplot in "Pride and Prejudice" is a parody of Henry Fielding's "Tom Jones".