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Pemberley is the fictional country estate owned by Fitzwilliam Darcy, the male protagonist in Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. It is located near the fictional town of Lambton, and believed by some to be based on Chatsworth House, near Bakewell in Derbyshire.
Contents
In describing the estate, Austen uses uncharacteristically explicit symbolism to represent the geographical home of the man at the centre of the novel. On first visiting the estate, Elizabeth Bennet is charmed by the beauty of the surrounding countryside, as indeed she is by Mr. Darcy himself. Elizabeth had already rejected Mr. Darcy's first proposal by the time she visits Pemberley—it is his letter, the praise of his housekeeper, and his own courteous behaviour at Pemberley that bring about a change in her opinion of Mr. Darcy.
In Pride and Prejudice
They gradually ascended for half a mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome, stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills;—and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal, nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place where nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were all of them warm in her admiration; and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something! Jane Austen (1813).
Sequel
A sequel to Pride and Prejudice entitled Pemberley was written by Emma Tennant and published in 1993.
In other media
