[Funny that the other thread on Mr. Darcy should appear, as I was thinking of posting this thread this evening…]
In the A&E miniseries, we learn that Mr. Darcy was privy to a yearly sum well in excess of “10,000.” I’m curious how many pounds–and thus US dollars–this fortune would be equivalent to today.
Can a direct dollar figure really be arrived at that is really representational of what 10,000 pounds bought back then? Also, we know he had a large country manor, which he obviously owned free and clear.
For the record, the period in question was 1810-1815, I believe.
A quick way to do it in your head is to simply multiply the figure in pounds by 100, then use that as the dollar amount. I’m not saying this is completely accurate, but it’s probably good enough. I’ve been told this trick works for Jane Austen’s writing and for the 1780s–I have no idea how far it can be pushed either backwards or forwards in time (probably not very many more decades foward into the 19C, at least.
Therefore Mr. Darcy’s annual income is around ONE MEEELLION DOLLARS! Damn good catch for Elizabeth, as her “portion”–the money she brings with her*to the marriage–is only 1,000 pounds, invested at in government stocks that pay 4% a year. Because Darcy’s a member of the landed gentry, his income is derived from his rent-roll–what his tenant farmers pay him. I suppose in a year of really really horrible weather, their crops could all fail and they wouldn’t be able to pay him anything, but he’s probably got some more cash in his sock drawer or something. Although I don’t think Austen mentions this, it would be normal for Mr. Darcy to have only a life interest in Pemberly, which means that the terms by which he inherited it say that he is entitled to all the income from the property and any investments the family has, but he can’t sell any of the land/dispose of any of the capital.
It’s tricky to translate incomes between one period and another like this, because the things that families spend money on are not really comparable. Horses and carriages are sort of like really, really, expensive cars; For example, the Bennets horses also work on their farm, despite their income of 2,000 pounds annually. I think that in nowdays it would be unusual for a family with a 200,000 income to have only one car, which they were only able to drive part of the time! (Of course, the Bennets also don’t have any rent or mortgage payments to keep up with…but they don’t actually own the property outright, either, so I’m not sure this counts as an advantage vis-a-vis us.)
Another (semi-)useful trick is a rough equivalency between number of servants and number of major household appliances. This is more relevant to situations like the Bates in Emma, who I think have only one, or maybe no, servants. Anybody with any pretensions at all to gentility kept at least a “girl.” so this shows you how close to the edge their household is.
Hope this helps!
Oh, yeah. A man’s or a family’s wealth is always indicated through however much per year they have. I don’t know how to figure backwards from that to the value of the land itself, but money is usually invested in some kind of government funds, and 5% interest is pretty common–the rate of return on Elizabeth’s dowry is low. Austen herself invested some of the money from her novels in the “Navy Five Percents.” Women’s money, on the other hand, is usually given as a figure that represents what they bring outright to the marriage, with the expectation that the couple will only be using the interest from that money. So the chiquita with whom Wickham almost hooks up (Miss Cook?) has 10,000 pounds ($1,000,000 principle) but the couple would live on the 500 ($50,000) pounds/year of interest from that. Whew!
Everybody knows Jefferson Darcy is unemployed, making him distinctly UN-wealthy. Marcy supported him with her big fat paycheck, so that he could hang out at the nudie-bar with Al all the time.
I’m not sure how accurate it is, but I found an explanation from this site, and the author prefaces her argument with the disclaimer that the formulae may be of limited use when even the poor in US have access to modern conveniences such as health care, speedy travel, and when only the super-rich nowadays can afford the number of servants that was the norm in those days. But it would be difficult to take those factors in - what price do you put on an efficient sewerage system and a flushing toilet?
