What Did Mr. Darcy Look Like?

According to a recent study commissioned by British TV channel Drama, not much like Colin Firth.

For two hundred years and counting, Fitzwilliam Darcy, from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, has been considered to be one of literature’s most desirable heartthrobs. Ladies have swooned over the character, finding appealing in the various facets of his personality and character that Austen skillfully delineates out. But they didn’t have physical details to swoon over from the book. Austen doesn’t always give her characters much physical description. We know only that Mr. Darcy is handsome, not even in what ways.

Naturally, this has led people to picture Mr. Darcy as whatever they think handsome. Since the 1995 miniseries, most picture Colin Firth, who is the kind of tall, dark, and handsome we consider attractive in the modern day. But what did Austen herself have in mind?

In honor of their Jane Austen season of airing Austen adaptations every Sunday, the British TV channel Drama decided to find out. So they employed a pair of scholars to determine what features he might have had, and artist Nick Hardcastle to paint a “historically accurate” portrait of him.

Thursday, they tweeted a video of their findings:

Colin Firth wouldn’t have been much of a heartthrob in the 1790s, according to the experts. Beauty standards, as they often do, favored the rich. And back then, rich men were pale, because they could stay indoors, powdered their hair, and had long oval faces. They did have good muscles in their legs from riding horses, but that was all. Big, dark, muscular Firth would’ve been seen as an uncouth peasant.

On the other hand, this study does make a pretty big assumption, in that Austen had the 1790s version of handsome in her head by the time she published the novel. She wrote the first version then, but she didn’t publish Pride and Prejudice until 1813. In the intervening years, she revised it quite a bit. By then, she might have seen it as taking place in more recent years. She might not have even settled on a firm year. Only Persuasion has a specific year and timeline it takes place in; her other novels could easily take place in the 1790s or the 1810s. And by the 1810s, powdered wigs were out.

Also, we don’t really know anything about any real life man inspiring Mr. Darcy. Scholars and others have long speculated on Jane Austen’s personal life, and acted like we know a lot more about it than we do. Perhaps Jane did have the famous Tom Lefroy in her head when she wrote, but we can’t know. (And from what we do know about him and his relationship with Austen, if any of the characters were based on him, it’s more likely to be Darcy’s friend Charles Bingley.)

Still, the image they come up with here may well be the closest to accurate we’ve got. It’s strange, thinking of one of literature’s most desirable man having an appearance that to most modern people seems slightly ridiculous. Perhaps it’s just as well that the adaptations modernize his handsomeness. Most would be unable to take Mr. Darcy seriously as a heartthrob if they didn’t.

Next: The Crown Has Found its John F. Kennedy for Season 2

For those in Britain, Drama’s Jane Austen season starts Sunday, Feb.12.