Oh, Mr. Darcy: Jane Austen P.L.C.

No, gentle reader, he does not resemble Colin Firth.

A portrait miniature of the man said to be the inspiration for Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Darcy is up for sale next week in London. The asking price for the palm-sized portrait? £50,000, or about $100,00.

The price is a reflection of how strong the market continues to be for Jane Austen. Her novels have always been popular, but lately Austen seems to have been rediscovered by audiences as something of an original "chick lit" novelist -- a Plum Sykes or Candace Bushnell of the turn of the 19th century. Sense and Sensibility or Emma have all the allure of Sex and the City, minus the incessant label-mongering not to mention the baring of the flesh.

And one Austen hero - Mr. Darcy - has emerged as "Mr. Big" of the genre, with the commercial appeal to match.

You might say it all started in 1996, when Colin Firth's portrayal of the mercurial Mr. Darcy in a television mini-series version of Pride and Prejudice developed a cult following in both the U.S. and Britain. So strong was the reaction that when the scriptwriter for the mini-series co-wrote Bridget Jones' Diary in 2001, he wrote the role of Mark Darcy for Colin Firth in hopes that Firth would take the role.

A big-screen adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightley in 2005 might have failed to produce a suitable Firth substitute, but it proved its mass appeal nonetheless with $121 million in worldwide grosses.

Now PBS's Masterpiece Theater series has shown a newly created set of adaptations of Austen's novels. The channel's "Complete Jane Austen" webpage includes a "Men of Austen" poll featuring 16 of Austen's heroes as if they were online dating profiles. With more than 87,000 votes, Fitzwilliam Darcy (depicted by Firth) is the No.1 choice.

Last summer the ties between everyone's favorite Austen hero and the author's own life were made more public by the release of Becoming Jane, a biographical film centered around Austen's relationship with the model for Mr. Darcy, Thomas Lefroy.

George Engleheart's 1798 likeness of Lefroy is being sold by Cotswold-based collectors Judy and Brian Harden, who believe that Lefroy's romantic link to Austen will command a hefty premium and justify the £50,000 price.

"The price is unusually high for the artist, because the work is totally unique, and very valuable to anyone interested in collecting Jane Austen memorabilia," Judy Harden said.

The Hardens have a number of other works by the artist featured for sale on their website, priced in the £6,000 -£10,000 range.

"With the film Becoming Jane there's certainly been a lot of interest in Austen's personal life," says Harden. "Darcy has really captured the imagination. "

Thus the interest in Lefroy. Judy Harden says that the painting, a signed original, is the earlier of two made by Engleheart -- which constitute the only known paintings of Lefroy as a young man.

For those of you considering an investment in your own little piece of Fitzwilliam Darcy: Alan Fausel, who heads the Fine Art department of Bonhams auction house in New York, says that a retail price (which tend to be two to three times higher than auction prices) of £50,000 is "not out of line" with what he would expect from the portrait.

Fausel says that Bonhams auctioned one of Engleheart's miniatures recently for £33,000 ($66,000), and sold one for $55,000 in 2004. Both portraits were of unidentified subjects, which tend to fetch less than famous sitters.

Judy Harden says that she has had a few interested buyers from the U.S. and Australia, but so far no one has claimed the piece. It will officially go on sale at the Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair on Thursday.

Liz Gunnison