Now universally acknowledged

Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World, by Claire Harman

What does Mr Darcy look like? Anyone who has read Pride and Prejudice will be able to give an answer. I believe that he is tall, square-jawed, beetle-browed, slightly weather-beaten and dark-haired. Is any of that at all controversial? But on returning to the novel, we find a strange thing. The one feature in that list which I would have thought beyond dispute is that he has dark hair. This, however, is what Jane Austen has to say about his personal appearance. On his first entry, he is said to have

a fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien …The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr Bingley.

A little later, Elizabeth says that ‘he has a very satirical eye’. When he and Wickham meet again unexpectedly, Austen comments that ‘both changed colour, one looked white, the other red’.