What Did Jane Austen Get for Writing Mr Darcy? Less Than He Earned in 4 Days

What did Jane Austen get for writing Mr Darcy? In 1812 she sold Pride and Prejudice outright for £110. We open both ledgers side by side: Darcy's £10,000 a year from the novel and Austen's own accounts from her letters and the Bank of England archives. 00:00 What Did Jane Austen Get for Pride and Prejudice? 00:31 The £110 sale: why she sold the copyright 02:47 Eighteen shillings: who earned from every copy 05:15 "Written myself into £250": her lifetime total 07:28 The Navy Fives: £30 a year against Mr Collins's £40 09:47 Real women of the era: Maria Edgeworth and the £10 manuscript Would you have taken Egerton's £110 in 1812, or kept the copyright and risked publishing yourself? Tell us in the comments, and subscribe for the next ledger: what Jane Bennet really got by marrying Mr Bingley. Educational content. Modern-money equivalents are estimates; measures and sources are listed above. Illustrations: public-domain archive images credited on screen and original stylised illustrations. SOURCES Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813), Project Gutenberg #1342: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1342 Jane Austen's letters (ed. Lord Brabourne, 1884), Project Gutenberg #42078: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42078 Bank Underground, "Jane Austen's income: insights from the Bank of England archives" (2019): https://bankunderground.co.uk/2019/08... Jane Austen's House, Pride and Prejudice JASNA, Sense and Sensibility; S. A. Ford, Persuasions On-Line 33.1 (2012) Irish Times, "Maria Edgeworth was a great literary celeb. Why has she been forgotten?" MeasuringWorth, UK purchasing power and average earnings: https://www.measuringworth.com/calcul... Archive images: public-domain archive images credited on screen; other credits on screen. #JaneAusten #PrideAndPrejudice #RegencyEngland