Darcy’S Dire Dilemma

John Hazard Forbes is the author of the two-volume Old Money America series. His fictional works include Who Killed Dottie, The Tamiami Mystery, and The Hinkletown Treasure. He currently lives in Thomasville, Georgia.

They never dreamt the danger of Jane Austen! Initially, the residents of Longbourn, Netherfield, and Pemberly had no reason to be wary. Miss Austen seemed merely a mild spinster who attended parties and asked benign questions about this cousin or that aunt. No one suspected her devious purpose: the creation of novels based upon persons of her acquaintance.It was much too late for poor George Wickham when Pride and Prejudice became all the rage. Of course, he was nothing like his odious fictional counterpart, which is what he hopes to clarify in this retelling of the events as they truly occurred. Miss Austen obviously warped reality, resulting in three hundred-odd pages of absolute rot.Whereas Wickham has never aspired to sainthood, he contends that the authoress greatly exaggerated his shortcomings. He now attempts to reconstruct the true love story so poorly delineated in that dreadful Pride and Prejudice. Four decades may have passed, but Wickham remembers all and now pays tribute to those so smeared by that awful Miss Austen.