How Rich is Fitzwilliam Darcy? Click here to view a morning coffee video by Brad DeLong on March 9, 2007. You will have to click on the start arrow to get the video started.
What does an income of 10,000 pounds mean? If you can get past Brad's awful imitation of Mrs. Bennett's voice, this is an informative 3 minute assessment of Darcy's wealth in today's terms.
Update:
For a fuller explanation of the video, click here to go to Austen Blog. There is a wonderful link to an economic paper that discusses Jane Austen's characters' economic circumstances.
3 comments:
It's deliberately awful!
There is a text-only version, somewhere: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/03/how_rich_is_fit.html
Yes, it is! But he makes a point - somewhere. Darcy would probably have an income of around $300,000, not the six million he quoted later. Those English estates soaked up money, and horses and carriages were quite expensive as well.
Still, I thought this was a fun little side trip. Darcy as a dot.com star? Hah!
I've always wondered about that.
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