A Chance Meeting: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

In Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice we are told that Fitzwilliam Darcy arrived in Ramsgate in time to stop his sister’s elopement with George Wickham, but what caused him to go there unexpectedly?

Darcy met Elizabeth Bennet while she was shopping with her Aunt Gardiner. It is Elizabeth who suggests he travels to Ramsgate to visit his sister. Darcy will always be grateful to her for that advice.

Meeting Elizabeth before joining Bingley at Netherfield can only help in their budding relationship, or does it? There are some who, for differing reasons, are unhappy with Darcy’s growing friendship & admiration for Miss Elizabeth Bennet and they are determined to put a stop to it.

• Averting threatened marriage to Collins
• Meetings of Elizabeth and Darcy prior to novel
• Prior meetings of Elizabeth and Georgiana
• Insult not made, or apologized for at Meryton assembly
• Elizabeth discovers truth about Wickham before proposal
• Rapprochement with Lady Catherine
• Caroline set-downs
• Kidnapping of Elizabeth as an adult
• Nicer Lady Catherine
• Darcy's first proposal made with more civility
• Wickham gets his just deserts
• More responsible Mr Bennet
• Extremely evil, criminally dangerous, Wickham
• Evil or insane Caroline Bingley
• Caroline gets her just deserts
• Altered or no Wickham and Lydia elopement
• Darcy doesn't interfere in/promotes Bingley & Jane's courtship