Dear Mr Darcy…
One day, while idly mulling over a particularly challenging life event, I found myself wondering ‘what would Darcy do?’ And thus was born the inspiration for possibly my quirkiest writing venture to date: a problem page for literary gentlemen, with Fitzwilliam Darcy, Esq, himself playing the role of agony uncle.
The project sat under wraps for months, while I got on with other, more pressing demands on my time. But it was with the advent of Bookylicious, our literary e-zine, that I started to revive the idea in earnest. Here, at last, was the perfect vehicle for Mr Darcy to wield his pen! A magazine dedicated to books, and the issues arising from them: what better publication could there be for confused characters to write in to, to seek advice from one of the most renowned gentlemen in the whole of literature?
Darcy may have had his faults, but he certainly learned from them; and it is this that makes him so well placed to respond to the troubles of others.
You can read Darcy’s letters on the Bookylicious site archive.
Dear Hermia & Helena
Not to be outdone by the gentlemen, Bookylicious‘s ladies soon followed Mr Darcy in the form of Hermia & Helena: literature’s answer to Cathy & Claire from Jackie magazine. The e-zine’s newest columnists offered advice to literary ladies in need of help. Their responses are – possibly? – unique in the history of problem pages in that they are written in iambic pentameter.
Hermia & Helena’s correspondence can be found on the Bookylicious site archive.