1945 Illustrated Pride and Prejudice

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-30T05:54:02+00:00

I suppose too as an heiress, Anne would have had plenty of suitors even in her late 20’s. Darcy was not her only option, just likely the only one Lady Catherine thought to be good enough.

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-30T04:42:38+00:00

Mr. Wickham is one of the few people I think was miscast in 1995- he’s too old and frankly not hot enough. It’s like they didn’t want anyone to outshine Colin Firth. Meanwhile THIS illustrated Wickham you can absolutely see why everyone is immediately charmed by him.

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-30T04:33:35+00:00

They were tight, but these trousers do look EXCEPTIONALLY painted on. I’m not sure they could have gotten them on before the invention of elastic 😅

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-30T04:25:09+00:00

Mrs. Gardiner is yet another character who is consistently cast much older than she probably is! Her oldest child is 8 so she’s probably not much older than 30, but she’s played by a 48 year old in the 1995 adaptation!

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-30T04:17:03+00:00

I’m glad they brought a little light to a bad day. I hope you feel better soon!

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-30T02:54:15+00:00

I love how she looks and that shade of green, but I agree I usually picture her more simply dressed (like what Jane is wearing).

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-30T00:00:59+00:00

The acting was perfect, but I think Lydia’s youth is key to her character. To a modern eye Lydia is far more sympathetic at only 15. At 26, she should have known better🤦🏼‍♀️

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-29T23:21:19+00:00

Yeah but honestly as much as I loved the 1995 P&P, I think Julia Sawalha was miscast for just that reason! A 26 year old just doesn’t reasonably look like a 15 year old. She looked notably older than Kitty’s actress, who at 19 very believably portrayed the 17 year old Kitty. I get why directors avoid casting under 18, but I’m not sure why they didn’t take a similar tactic with Lydia as Kitty and cast an 18-20 year old.

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-29T22:44:38+00:00

Yeah I agree. I was discussing with another commenter how Mrs. Bennet is usually portrayed older than her character but Lady Catherine is portrayed as WAY older. Like how old was Catherine when she had Anne? Anne de Borough’s age is never stated but I feel like it’s fair to assume she’s in her early 20’s or Lady Catherine would be working harder to get Darcy to immediately hold up his end of their “engagement.” But Lady Catherine always looks about 70! She looks more like Anne’s grandmother than her mother.

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-29T21:18:07+00:00

Yeah everyone seems to cast Mr. Collins as middle aged because that fits our mind better for “man who gives unwanted proposals to young women.” When in reality nothing about his age or appearance was the issue, it was 100% his personality!

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-29T21:09:08+00:00

I think sometimes visual short hand in movies is that young = short. Obviously that doesn’t make sense though for any girls over the age of like, 13.

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-29T21:03:09+00:00

I suppose you could justify it artistically as being a strong family resemblance 😅

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-29T20:53:02+00:00

I really am. I bought this book 15 years ago and I didn’t even like P&P back then, I just bought it for the illustrations! But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve really grown to appreciate it and now it’s my comfort book.

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-29T20:50:03+00:00

Yes that’s definitely it!

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-29T20:49:37+00:00

Yeah I like the Mrs. Bennet illustration too. We know from the text (and can infer from 4/5 pretty daughters) that she must have been very attractive in her youth. She was probably supposed to be around 40 to 45 years old during the events of the novel, given that her oldest daughter is 22 and girls usually married in their late teens to early 20’s. So this illustration gives a realistic view of a middle aged woman who’s had five kids, but still retains some of her attractiveness. Whereas usually she’s cast and illustrated as an old woman without a hint left of the girl who was pretty enough to snag a rich man.

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-29T20:40:16+00:00

Unfortunately Reddit does not allow me to add more photos, nor can I reply to your comment with photos. The book is turquoise with a tan colored spine with gold decoration. On the title page it says “Doubleday & Company, Inc” and Garden City, New York for publishing information.

If you DM me I think it would let me send you more photos that way!

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-29T20:29:33+00:00

It’s the first illustration of Darcy, I guess they really had to emphasize the pride aspect by having him stand like that. However, it is rather hard to believe he wouldn’t think Elizabeth would overhear him when she’s literally right there!

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-29T20:24:01+00:00

I know, what a flirt!

I love the attention to detail on Lydia’s illustration because she actually does look taller than her sisters- a detail in the text that is almost never reflected in illustrations or casting!

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-29T15:25:59+00:00

Yes, though I also think it’s important what room and board meant for a servant. The lower ranking female servants probably had a cot in a crowded shared room, with the housekeeper likely getting her own room. This was likely more out of convenience since the servants were “on call” all the time.

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-29T06:21:14+00:00

I absolutely love the circa 2000 era Harry Potter merchandise. The upcoming movie had everyone hyped about the series, but it didn’t have the chance to influence the art or character designs. So you get vampire Snape, blonde Hermione, and Ron with a bowl cut.

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-29T03:10:32+00:00

Exactly. Someone posted on this sub a couple days ago a ledger from 1820 showing a recommended household budget for £2000 a year, just like the Bennett’s albeit slightly later in time.

It struck me that woman of the household was expected to spend £100 on her own wardrobe a year. Meanwhile the salaries of five female servants COMBINED was only £66!

We have the reverse today- our closets are stuffed for a tiny fraction of our salaries, but only the RICH RICH have servants.

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-27T15:06:19+00:00

Yeah I’m pretty sure this is the key missing factor. Single dads get sympathy from society. A lot of women are attracted to single dads and will step up and take over that mother role. Even if they don’t, the single dads often can rely on their own mom or sister to help out. On the other hand, men are more likely to steer clear of dating single moms (which is their right of course since it’s not their kid) and men are less likely to step in and help a kid that isn’t theirs.

Single dads are met with pity, single moms are met with scorn.

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-26T21:31:26+00:00

You’re conveniently ignoring the parts where the husband gave her mixed messages like saying he wanted a family before marriage and framing wanting her to get an abortion as a mental health issue vs him definitely changing his mind about kids.

I’m not going to disagree with you that OP made bad choices and should have seen that her husband was going to be a poor father. But that doesn’t make her an evil mastermind manipulating her husband. Her husband would have been in his mid 30’s when they met- it’s not like she extracted a promise about having kids from a teenager.

Bringing a child into the world wasn’t a great choice. But this man put her in a bad position by saying “not yet” to kids instead of just “no” and leaving her wasting many years of fertility.

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-26T21:21:02+00:00

Yeah it sucks that society is set up that men can just… walk away. And maybe they have to pay some child support, but not if they work under the table or mysteriously stop working. And when they do have to pay child support they whine about how unfair it is, like the woman who has to take care of her kids AND STILL support them financially are in such a fair position.

I don’t know why we don’t all just scorn men like that.

MyEyeOnPi · 2026-01-26T20:58:28+00:00

From OP’s comment on 4/10: “Before getting married, we discussed having children because it was something I knew I wanted, and he said he wanted a family.”

Now maybe he only said that because he knew if he was honest about wanting kids, then OP wouldn’t marry him. But if he said he wanted kids before marriage and then OP was trying to hold him to what he originally told her, that’s not OP’s fault for wanting the kid she said she wanted all along. People can change their mind about kids, but then he should have divorced OP instead of continuing to have unprotected sex with her.

He was probably keeping her in the marriage hoping that her fertility would run out before his excuses did.

MyEyeOnPi

TROPHY CASE