Well probably some of you know how the story ends - Jane and Bingley get married, Lydia and Wickham get married after Darcy bribes Wickham into it, and Elizabeth realizes the kind of man Darcy truly is through this action and marries him.
the end.
Yay, everyone's happy!
However recent evidence turned up only weeks ago has produced an original draft of Pride and Prejudice much different from the final one. This version was criticized as being "Scandalous and appalling," and included elements that were later abandoned, most of which had been inserted to amuse the younger male audience who had limited tolerance for the romance seen in the novel.
Originally, the story took place in the North American colonies during the French and Indian war. Jane and Elizabeth's father was a general in the British army, and the girls were staying at another fort nearby. Wanting to see their father, they were escorted on a shortcut through the woods by an officer by the name of Bingley and an indian runner named Magua.
Magua, who is really working for the French, leads them hopelessly off-course, but thankfully they run into a hunter named Fitzwilliam Darcy and his Indian companions, Chingachgook and Uncas. Basically there's a bunch of fighting between the protagonists and the evil Indian tribes, and Bingley and Darcy go off after Elizabeth and Jane who have been captured...
...and at this point, as Jane Austen wrote in her diary, her sister Cassandra (how come her sister got the cool name?) pointed out that the amount of violence present in the initial draft would be appalling to the general public. So, the story was dropped only to be completed by none other than James Fenimore Cooper in Last of the Mohicans.
so as you see, nothing is original :P
more weirdness coming soon! (I'm going to try and start blogging more again).
