Thomas Langlois Lefroy - Tom Lefroy and Jane Austen

Tom Lefroy and Jane Austen

In 1796, Lefroy began a flirtation with English novelist Jane Austen, who was a friend of an older female relative. Jane Austen wrote two letters to her sister Cassandra mentioning "Tom Lefroy", and some have suggested that it may have been he whom Austen had in mind when she invented the character of Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, as the courtship between Tom Lefroy and Jane Austen took place over the year or so that Pride and Prejudice was written. In his 2003 biography, Becoming Jane Austen, Jon Spence suggests that Jane Austen actually used personalities as the models for Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, but not in an expected way. Mr. Spence suggests that Jane Austen used herself as a model for Mr. Darcy and his measured demeanor while Tom Lefroy acted as the model for the more gregarious Elizabeth Bennet. So while the exact influence of Tom Lefroy on Pride and Prejudice continues to be debated, it does seem certain that his presence in Austen's life is in some way reflected in the novel.

In a letter dated Saturday (9 January 1796), Austen mentioned:

You scold me so much in the nice long letter which I have this moment received from you, that I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together. I can expose myself however, only once more, because he leaves the country soon after next Friday, on which day we are to have a dance at Ashe after all. He is a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man, I assure you. But as to our having ever met, except at the three last balls, I cannot say much; for he is so excessively laughed at about me at Ashe, that he is ashamed of coming to Steventon, and ran away when we called on Mrs. Lefroy a few days ago.
. . .
After I had written the above, we received a visit from Mr. Tom Lefroy and his cousin George. The latter is really very well-behaved now; and as for the other, he has but one fault, which time will, I trust, entirely remove — it is that his morning coat is a great deal too light. He is a very great admirer of Tom Jones, and therefore wears the same coloured clothes, I imagine, which he did when he was wounded.

In a letter started on Thursday (14 January 1796), and finished the following morning, there was another mention of him.

Friday. — At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be over. My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea.

Austen's surviving correspondence contains only one other mention of Tom Lefroy, in a November 1798 letter that Austen biographer Claire Tomalin believes demonstrates the author's "bleak remembrance, and persistent interest" in Lefroy. In the letter to her sister, Austen writes that Tom's aunt Mrs. Lefroy had been to visit, but had not said anything about her nephew...

"...to me, and I was too proud to make any enquiries; but on my father's afterwards asking where he was, I learnt that he was gone back to London in his way to Ireland, where he is called to the Bar and means to practise."

Upon learning of Jane Austen’s death (18 July 1817), Thomas Langlois Lefroy traveled from Ireland to England to pay his respects to the British author. In addition, at an auction of Cadell's papers (possibly in London), one Tom Lefroy bought a Cadell publisher's rejection letter—for Austen’s early version of Pride and Prejudice, titled First Impressions. Caroline Austen said in her letter to James Edward Austen-Leigh on 1 April 1869:

I enclose a copy of Mr. Austen’s letter to Cadell—I do not know which novel he would have sent—The letter does not do much credit to the tact or courtesy of our good Grandfather for Cadell was a great man in his day, and it is not surprising that he should have refused the favour so offered from an unknown—but the circumstance may be worth noting, especially as we have so few incidents to produce. At a sale of Cadell’s papers &c Tom Lefroy picked up the original letter—and Jemima copied it for me –

It was rather unlikely that Caroline Austen would address the Chief Justice Lefroy as only ‘Tom Lefroy’ (she indeed addressed him as the still living ‘Chief Justice’ in the later part of the letter). However, if it is true that the original Tom Lefroy purchased the Cadell letter after Jane’s death, it is possible that he later handed it over to Thomas Edward Preston Lefroy (T.E.P. Lefroy; husband of Jemima Lefroy who was the daughter of Anna Austen Lefroy and Benjamin Lefroy). T.E.P. Lefroy later would give Cadell’s letter to Caroline for reference. Cadell & Davies firm was closed down in 1836 after the death of Thomas Cadell Jr.. The sale of Cadell's papers took place in 1840, possibly in November.

In the latter years of Tom Lefroy's life, he was questioned about his relationship with Jane Austen by his nephew, and admitted to having loved Jane Austen, but stated that it was a "boyish love". As is written in a letter sent from T.E.P. Lefroy to James Edward Austen Leigh in 1870,

My late venerable uncle ... said in so many words that he was in love with her, although he qualified his confession by saying it was a boyish love. As this occurred in a friendly & private conversation, I feel some doubt whether I ought to make it public.

A fictitious account of their relationship is at the center of the 2007 historical romance film Becoming Jane. In this film, Lefroy is played by James McAvoy.