Wealth and Inheritances
Over the course of the novel, we learn quite a bit about the financial standing of various characters, below, please find sorted lists of Austen's wealthiest characters.Ladies
Miss Sophia Gray is described as having a dowry of £50,000.Georgiana Darcy is mentioned as having a dowry of £30,000.
Miss Morton, prospective bride of Edward Ferrars, is also mentioned as having a dowry of £30,000, which John Dashwood estimates can yield £2,500 per anum.
Caroline Bingley and Louisa Hurst have dowries of £20,000 from their tradesman father.
Fanny Ferrars married John Dashwood with a dowry of ￡10,000.
The Bennet girls will get £1,000 each when they marry.
Elinor and Marianne Dashwood also get ￡1,000 from their uncle in compensation for being so thoroughly excluded from the Norland Park estate.
Gentlemen
Fitzwilliam Darcy is estimated to enjoy £10,000 per anum through Pemberley.Charles Bingley has £4,000 - £5,000 per anum.
We are told that Colonel Brandon is reckoned to get no more than £2,000 per anum from the Delaford estate.
Elinor seems to think that Allenham brings in around £2,000, even teasing Marianne who pinpoints that sum as an ideal amount of income.
Edward Ferrars is disinherited of ￡1,000 per anum when he announces an engagement against is mother's wishes. Lucy Steele insists that he has ￡2,000 in his own right.
Sir John estimates Combe Magna at bringing in £600-700 per year, though Elinor feels “[Willoughby] lived at an expense to which that income could hardly be equal, and he had himself often complained of his poverty.”
Colonel Brandon estimates that the last resident of the Rectory at Delaford "did not make more than £200 per anum," though Mrs. Jennings later expresses skepticism as to whether he really knew how the house was being managed.
