I've posted on this topic before, and, in a thread lower down this board, I referred Karen 2L to what I wrote some years ago, It seems worth dusting off the issue again as there are newcomers since I first posted, so I'm resurrecting it and adding a few minor points.

How can we work out what year a novel is supposed to be set?

Apart from using references in the text (such as the clear ones in ``Persuasion'') there's another means of dating when a novel is supposed to be set: the use of calendars. If there is a useful date - ie the day of the week of a day of the month (such as Sunday, 24 November, today's date) - you can narrow down the year to one or two in a decade. If there's an indication of when Easter was, you can often do even better.

These calculations do make an assumption: that an author had a definite year in mind, and worked with a calendar in her hand, to avoid inconsistencies like having six Sundays in a month, or not enough time between Michaelmas and Christmas. Lots of authors do this, especially those concerned with accuracy, as JA evidently was.

Incidentally, if the first version of the story was in letter form, as has often been suggested, it is even more likely that JA wrote with a calendar in her hand, as letter form doesn't allow an author to fudge the dates in the way that conventional form can do (you have to make sure that people have time to receive and answer each other's letters).

For ``Pride and Prejudice'' the clue date is the Netherfield Ball: Tuesday 26 November. Possible years on which 26 November was a Tuesday between the mid 1790s, when she wrote ``First Impressions'' and 1813 when P&P was published were 1793, 1799, 1805 and 1811.

Ellen Moody (see link) takes 1811; this is evidently based on the work of Chapman. However, it doesn't work if we look at the next calendrical clue, the date of Easter in the subsequent year, when Mr Darcy spends Eastertide with his aunt at Rosings. These are as follows:
1794 - April 20
1800 - April 13
1806 - April 6
1812 - March 29

If we look at events of this period from the novel we find:
(a) Elizabeth goes to Hunsford in March (Ch 27)
(b) (from Ch 30) ``... the first fortnight of her visit soon passed away. Easter was approaching, and the week preceding it, was to bring an addition'' [ie Mr Darcy & Col Fitzwilliam]; she had heard shortly after her arrival that Mr Darcy was expected there in the course of ``a few weeks'' They arrive just under a week before Easter (Ch 31).
(c) The Collinses and Lizzy are invited to Rosings on Easter Day (Ch 31), when Lizzy, Col Fitz & Mr Darcy have their three-cornered conversation over the piano.
(d) Mr Darcy's ill-fated proposal comes days, perhaps a week or more, after this; the day after is about five weeks (Ch 35) after her arrival. He leaves the day after that (ie two days after the proposal), and she leaves between a week and a fortnight after that, having spent about six weeks (Ch 37) in Hunsford.
(e) Less than a fortnight (Ch 34) after the proposal, Lizzy arrives in London to meet the Gardiners and Jane. They remain there a few days (Ch 38), and in the second week in May (Ch 39) they set off for Hertfordshire.

In sum, Easter in the year in question is around three weeks before the second week in May (about a week between Easter and the proposal, less than a fortnight between the proposal and arrival in London, and a few days in London). This wipes out 1794, in which Easter was too late, and 1812, in which it was too early: 1800 is best, though 1806 will fit at a pinch.

Moody's and Chapman's calculations, based on the events taking place in 1811-1812, must be wrong - she has far too long a stay in London after the return from Hunsford.

There is only one external references of much use in P&P (unless a fashion guru can tell us something about ``long sleeves''). The bit at the end, about ``the restoration of peace'' dismissing Wickham from the army, most plausibly refers to the Peace of Amiens, which was the only interval in the French Revolutionary/ Napoleonic war between 1792 and 1814: the treaty was signed in 1802, and war resumed the year after. However, it is possible that JA could have been referring hopefully to a future peace.

My guess as to what happened is that ``First Impressions'' was written with 1799-1800 in mind. If there were any contemporary references, JA took them all out when she revised it as P&P, thus giving it its undatable quality.