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.
Republic of Pemberley
The Republic of Pemberley is an online community dedicated to the appreciation of the work of the English author Jane Austen. The site was established shortly after the release of the 1995 BBC adaptation of Austen's novel, "Pride and Prejudice", and takes its name from the estate owned by the hero Fitzwilliam Darcy. The website was co-founded by Myretta Robens and Amy Bellinger. It is the largest online Jane Austen fansite and had an average of 8 million to 10 million hits per month as of 2007. In 2000, there were one million page views of its fan-fiction area each year, and most of their fanfic authors are female. Stories based on "Pride and Prejudice" dominate the site as it is the most popular Austen work.