Pride and Prejudice: How old were the characters?

Pride and Prejudice is a universally acknowledged best seller and one of the most downloaded books of all time on Project Gutenberg. Yet there is still some level of confusion around how old the characters actually were, how comparatively rich they were and so on.

This article seeks to demystify the ages as they are given in the original work and not how the characters are misleadingly portrayed with actors of the wrong ages (often older).

Here we go:

The book starts off in Mid September of an unspecified year in the early 1800s.

"...he came down on Monday in a chaise and four, to see the place, and was so much delighted with it that he agreed with Mr Morris immediately; that he is to take possession by Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of the week."

Chapter One: Mrs Bennet talking to her husband about Mr Bingley.

Michaelmas is the short form name of the Christian Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael which takes place on 29th September each year. This places the arrival of Mr Bingley and the start of the novel in mid to late September. This fact is relevant for understanding the length of the action in the book, which is about one year.

The Bennet Sisters

Mr and Mrs Bennet have been married about 23 years at the beginning of the book which takes place around mid to late September. 

"Mr Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character.”

Chapter 1

Jane

Age: 22

By the time Elizabeth gets back from Huntsford, the second week of May, Jane is twenty-two years old. Lydia impolitely states:

“I was in great hopes that one of you would have got a husband before you came back. Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is almost three and twenty!”

Chapter 39

Elizabeth

Age: 20

In March, six months after the start of the book, Elizabeth went to visit Charlotte in Huntsford. Whilst dining at Rosing’s Park Elizabeth had a conversation with Lady Catherine about her age:

“You cannot be more than twenty, I am sure, - therefore you need not conceal your age.”

“I am not one and twenty.”

Chapter 29

Elizabeth confirms to Lady Catherine that she is not 21 and given what we know of the ages of her younger sisters, this shows that she could not have been any younger than 20.

Lydia

Age: 15 at first 16 by the end.

In March whilst conversing with Lady Catherine, Elizabeth explains Lydia’s age.

“Yes, my youngest is not sixteen. Perhaps she is full young to be much in company.”

Chapter 29

By June Lydia has turned sixteen as Mrs Bennet says:

“Mrs Wickham! How well it sounds, And she only turned sixteen last June.”

Chapter 49

Catherine (Kitty)

Age:17 at first 18 by the end

Kitty’s age can only be determined indirectly when she explains it in relation to Lydia.

“I cannot see why Mrs Forster should not ask me as well as Lydia,” said she, “though I am not her particular friend. I have as much right to be asked as she has, and more too for I am two years older.”

Chapter 41

Mary

Age: 18/19

We know that Mary is the middle child of the Bennets and that she is the most neglected. If Kitty is 17 when Elizabeth is 20 this leaves a 3 year window in which Mary was born but realistically, take away 20 months for two pregnancies from this to get a more accurate portrait.

Kitty is often described in ways that suggest that she is of ill health, possibly suggesting that her mother didn’t wait as long as between having her and Mary as she did between Jane and Elizabeth or Kitty and Lydia.

Georgiana Darcy

Age: not older than 16

In about late October into early November, a month since she has met Mr Darcy, Elizabeth and Wickham discuss Miss Darcy and Wickham says of her:

“She is a handsome girl, about fifteen or sixteen, and, I understand highly accomplished."

Chapter 16

When Mr Darcy writes to Elizabeth, possibly some time in April (certainly later than March), he writes of Georgiana;

“My sister, who is more than ten years my junior, was left to the guardianship of my mother’s nephew Colonel Fitzwilliam, and myself… She was then but then fifteen, which must be her excuse…”

Chapter 35

The elopement of Mr Wickham and Miss Darcy took place just a few months before Elizabeth met Mr Darcy and Mr Wickham. As Darcy writes:

“...last summer she went with the lady who presided over it, to Ramsgate; and thither also went Mr Wickham, undoubtedly by design.”

Chapter 35: Darcy's Letter

By April of the following year it seems that Miss Darcy has had her birthday since her brother speaks of her as being fifteen in the past tense.

Fitzwilliam Darcy

Age: 28+

Mr Darcy tells Elizabeth that he is over the age of 28.

“I was spoilt by my parents, who though good themselves (my father particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing, to care for none beyond my own family circle, to think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meaning of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth!”

Chapter 58

When Mr Darcy said that his sister was more than ten years his junior, the word “more” isn’t just there for decoration. Georgiana is between 12 and 13 years younger than her brother.

William Collins

Age: 25

As of late October - early November, Mr Collins was exactly 25 years old.

“He was a tall, heavy-looking young man of five and twenty.”

Chapter 13

Charlotte Lucas

Age: 27 at the beginning

When describing the Lucases, Jane Austen writes, 

“They had several children. The eldest of them, a sensible, intelligent young woman, about twenty-seven, was Elizabeth’s intimate friend."

Chapter 5

This means that in the book, Charlotte is one of the few females older than her husband.

Charles Bingley

Age: 22 at the start

Jane Austen writes that, 

“Mr Bingley had not been of age two years, when he was tempted by an accidental recommendation to look at Netherfield House.”

Chapter 4

In the Regency Period and for most of British history in fact, the age of majority was 21. This means that Mr Bingley had not reached 23 when he first went to view Netherfield house a few weeks before Michaelmas, 29th September, in the year the book started.

Caroline Bingley

Age: 20 or less.

Portrayed as an antagonist and rival in most dramatizations, Caroline Bingley was younger than her brother Charles and possibly younger than Elizabeth.

“My Bingley was unaffectedly civil in his answer, and forced his younger sister to be civil also, and say what the occasion required.”

Chapter 9

When Miss Bingley kindly tries to warn her that Mr Wickham is not all he portrays himself to be, Elizabeth mumbles that she is an:

“Insolent girl!... You are much mistaken if you expect to influence me by such a paltry attack as this.” 

Chapter 18

The reason why Caroline Bingley has more gravitas than Jane who is older than her, is simply that Caroline Bingley had a fortune of £20,000 just like each of her 4 sisters, of whom only Mrs Louisa Hurst is named.

George Wickham

Age: 26+

Whilst wooing Elizabeth with tales of woe, Mr Wickham suggests his age by stating that:

“Certain it is, that the living became vacant two years ago, exactly as I was of an age to hold it, and that it was given to another man; and no less certain is it, that I cannot accuse myself of having really done anything to deserve to lose it. I have a warm, unguarded temper, and I may have spoken my opinion of him, and to him, too freely.”

Chapter 16

According to the Clergy Ordination Act of 1804, a priest could not be fully ordained or hold a living until he was at least 24 years old, which might go some way to explaining why Mr Collins was so thankful to his benefactress Lady Catherine, who gave him a valuable living in her parish when he was 25. Moving back to Wickham, if we can believe anything he says to be true, then he is at least 26 years old, if the living fell two years before as he says.

Mr Darcy confirms that Wickham is of a similar age to himself in his letter:

“The vicious propensities—the want of principle, which he was careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself, and who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which Mr. Darcy could not have.”

Chapter 35 - Darcy explaining how Wickham was able to fool Mr Darcy Sr. but not him.

I believe this covers all of the major characters from Pride and Prejudice using the hints left by Jane Austen in her famous novel. Please leave a comment below regarding your thoughts on this. Does the age of the characters impact how you view their behaviour?