Lady Catherine de Bourgh is a character in the 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. According to Janet Todd, Lady Catherine can be seen as a foil to the novel's protagonist Elizabeth Bennet.
Illustration by C. E. Brock
Lady Catherine and Elizabeth in Hertfordshire by C. E. Brock, 1895
Pride and Prejudice is a novel by English author Jane Austen. Written when she was aged 20–21, it was her third novel written and became the second to see print when it was published in 1813. A novel
Lady Catherine de Bourgh
…Lady Catherine de Bourgh ( də-BUR; née Fitzwilliam) is a character in the 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. According to Janet Todd, Lady Catherine can be seen as a foil to the novel's protagonist Elizabeth Bennet. Lady Catherine was the sister…
Title page of the first edition, 1813
Mr Darcy says Elizabeth is "not handsome enough to tempt him" to dance. (Artist: C.E. Brock, 1895)
Elizabeth tells her father that Darcy united Lydia and Wickham – one of the two earliest illustrations of Pride and Prejudice. The fashions reflect the engraving date (1830s), not the period of the novel.
In a letter to Cassandra dated May 1813, Jane Austen describes a picture she saw at a gallery which was a good likeness of "Mrs Bingley" – Jane Bennet. Deirdre Le Faye in The World of Her Novels suggests that "Portrait of Mrs Q" is the picture Austen was referring to. (pp. 201–203)