Pounds and Prejudice: So, How Rich Is Mr. Darcy? | Binge Thinking BOS

Join us and grab a drink as we investigate: was Mr. Darcy actually a catch, or just really, really rich? Let's do the math
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TOPIC:
Pounds and Prejudice: So, How Rich Is Mr. Darcy?
Decoding Wealth and Class in Jane Austen's England
SPEAKER:
Dr. Lawrence Evalyn, Northeastern University

"He's single, he's brooding, and he's worth ten thousand a year." Every Pride and Prejudice fan knows the line - but what did it actually mean? In 1813, readers didn't need a footnote to understand Mr. Darcy's income, his manners, or exactly where he ranked in society. Two centuries later, we do.

Jane Austen wrote about the world right in front of her: a Georgian England reshaping itself through the Agricultural Revolution, on the eve of an Industrial one, with class lines that were sharper - and stranger - than they look today. Her characters' fortunes, family names, and "connections" weren't just gossip; they were the entire plot.

In this talk, Northeastern University librarian Dr. Lawrence Evalyn plays financial translator for the 19th century, unpacking exactly where Darcy's money came from, how colonialism and industrialization quietly shape the world of the novel, and how to catch the sly jokes Austen was making that modern readers tend to miss entirely.

Topics include:

• Where "ten thousand a year" actually came from, and why it mattered so much
• The difference between having money and having rank in Georgian society
• Jane Austen's own family, and where she stood in the world she wrote about
• What Austen shows us plainly — and what she leaves just out of frame
• A few (not too many) spoilers, plus book recommendations for your next read

About the Speaker

Dr. Lawrence Evalyn is the Text Mining Specialist at Northeastern University Library, where he supports computational research on textual media. His Digital Humanities work focuses on eighteenth-century book history particularly the economics of publishing and book-buying, and the contributions of women writers and authors of colour. He most recently contributed a chapter to The Cambridge Companion to Ignatius Sancho, on how a collection of letters by a Black Briton was crowdfunded back in the 1780s.

Before joining the library, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Northeastern. He holds a B.A. in English from Duke University, an M.A. in English from the University of Victoria, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Toronto — and is currently working toward an M.S. in Computer Science at Northeastern, which he acknowledges that this last degree represents an excessive amount of graduate school.

Agenda

7:00 PM — Doors Open (Grab a seat and drinks!)

7:30 PM — Lecture Begins

8:10 PM — Audience Q&A

8:30 PM — Drinks & Conversation

9:00 PM — Event Ends