Who was Jane Austen’s best leading man? These experts think they know

Bradshaw, Penelope ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7240-9206 (2025) Who was Jane Austen’s best leading man? These experts think they know. The Conversation UK .

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Abstract

As part of the Jane Austen @250 celebrations, University of Cumbria scholar Dr Penny Bradshaw, Associate Professor of English Literature, has contributed to a lively and engaging series of articles published in The Conversation, exploring Austen’s enduring legacy through the lens of her most iconic characters. Bradshaw has written a 'best hero/leading man' piece championing Mr Darcy. The article is part of the Jane Austen Fight Club series, which invites readers to vote for their favourite Austen hero and heroine after reading expert perspectives from a range of scholars.

On one level, Mr Darcy needs no championing. Cultural evidence (from branded tea-towels and other merchandise, to multiple portrayals on screen) suggests that he remains the most popular of Austen’s heroes. His “fine, tall person” and “handsome features” are clearly important factors here, but his chilly reserve and initial dismissal of Elizabeth Bennet as merely “tolerable” do not immediately endear him to the reader. The source of Darcy’s very great appeal lies partly in the fact that he begins to love her in spite of his own prejudices and because, while Darcy does undoubtedly admire Lizzie’s appearance (including her “fine eyes”), his admiration extends to qualities which, at this point in time, were hardly typical of the fictional heroines of romance. Lizzie bears little resemblance to the usually rather passive and often victimised heroines encountered in countless popular novels of the late-18th and early-19th century. Crucially, Darcy is drawn to the “liveliness” of Lizzie’s mind and as a hero he therefore validates a new kind of heroine: a woman whose wit and intelligence is as much a part of her attraction as physical appearance.

Item Type:	Article
Journal / Publication Title:	The Conversation UK
Publisher:	The Conversation Trust (UK) Limited
Departments:	Institute of Arts > Humanities
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	19 Sep 2025 09:10
Last Modified:	20 Sep 2025 08:45
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/9052

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