Duty and Desire Duty and Desire Duty and Desire is a 2004 historical Romance novel by Pamela Aidan. The second in the "Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman" trilogy, the novel examines Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" from the perspective of Fitzwilliam Darcy, the central male character of that novel. In relation to "Pride and Prejudice", on which the novel is based, "Duty and Desire" takes place between Darcy's initial leaving of Hertfordshire and his reappearance in "Pride"'s narrative at Rosings Park. Following on from the events of "An Assembly Such as This", the novel opens with Fitzwilliam Darcy preparing for the Christmas season with his
Pride and Prejudice Meryton was opened in August 1793, and the barracks for all the regiments of the militia were completed by 1796, placing the events of the novel between 1793 and 1795. Austen made significant revisions to the manuscript for "First Impressions" between 1811 and 1812. As nothing remains of the original manuscript, we are reduced to conjecture. From the large number of letters in the final novel, it is assumed that "First Impressions" was an epistolary novel. She later renamed the story "Pride and Prejudice" around about 1811/1812, which she sold the rights to publish the manuscript to Thomas Egerton for