Sophie Turner: Masculinity in the Regency
Good morning, Maria Grazia, and thank you for welcoming me
to your wonderful blog. I am thrilled to launch the blog tour for my latest
release, Mistress, here at My Jane Austen Book Club. Today I
wanted to share with you and your readers a post about one of my favorite
Austen heroes, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. Like quite a few women, I was mildly
horrified by the New York Times article that envisioned Mr. Darcy as a pale,
rather thin man with powdered hair. Horrified, and a little perplexed.
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Darcy from the study
mentioned in the article, vs., of course, Colin Firth’s portrayal
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Assuming the 1811 timeline of Pride and Prejudice, Darcy was
better than 15 years past when hair powder was common. Following a tax on hair
powder in 1795, use fell off rapidly. It’s pretty possible that Darcy might
never have used hair powder at all, and I can see no way that an 1811 Darcy
would have had powdered hair.
