There are remarkable parallels between Pride and Prejudice and Edward Gibbon Wakefield.

Jane Austen started writing P&P in 1796, the year Wakefield was born.

The villainous Wickham plots to elope to Gretna Green with the 15 year old heiress Georgiana Darcy.
The villainous Wakefield eloped to Gretna Green with the 15 year old heiress Ellen Turner.

Wickham hopes to get his hands on Miss Darcy's £30,000.
Wakefield would have got £30,000 through his first wife Eliza Pattle, had she survived to her 21st birthday.

Unlike Eliza and Georgiana (and Lydia Bennet), Ellen's consent was obtained unwillingly and by deception. Wakefield claimed that only by marrying him could she save her father from (completely fictional) financial ruin. The marriage was subsequently dissolved by a special act of Parliament.

Readers speculate as to what various characters' futures might have held after the end of the book. Might Wickham's have included both prison and Parliament, as it did for Wakefield?
#PrideAndPrejudice #EdwardGibbonWakefield #ShrigleyAbduction #JaneAusten #history