Literary humour

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.

Mr Darcy initially wielded his pen in Bookylicious, a literary e-zine I co-founded (now defunct, but living on in our podcast of the same name). 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.

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.

You can now read all their correspondence below…