Mr Darcy's Diary - Amanda Grange

Pride and Prejudice is the most popular romance of all time, and in this enjoyable retelling Amanda Grange allows us to see the events of Jane Austen's famous novel from Mr Darcy's point of view.


Scenes only hinted at in the original are here recorded in detail and brought to life as Darcy writes of his horror at discovering his sister's plans to elope with George Wickham, his efforts to separate Charles Bingley from Miss Jane Bennet and his disgust at having to arrange a marriage between George Wickham and Miss Lydia Bennet.

But, most satisfying of all, he discloses his feelings for Elizabeth. Darcy's Diary records the full story of their courtship, from initial hostility to their eventual love, before revealing a tantalizing glimpse of their early married life.

I was a bit worried about starting this Mr. Darcy's Diary. The only other book in this collection that I had read was Captain Wentworth's Diary and at the time I was less than impressed with it. Sometimes you form an idea, on your head, about a character and it's not always that the author can match that idea.

Fortunately I had no such problem here. This Darcy maybe not be the Darcy that Austen wrote but he is close enough for us to get a glimpse of that world and, even if we don't learn anything new, we leave entertained and wishing to revisit the original Pride and Prejudice.

The events are pretty much the ones described in P&P but from Mr. Darcy's perspective, this means we get a few more scenes, just over or mentioned but not seen in the original story. We follow the change in Darcy from being the arrogant pretender to the man deeply in love and for fans of the original I guess it is a nice way to spend more time with your favourite characters. I found it a fun and entertaining read.

Grade: 4/5