Bridget Jones fans have expressed their horror at the news that author Helen Fielding has killed off Mark Darcy in new book Mad About The Boy.
In extracts from her new book, published in the Sunday Times magazine, Bridget Jones reveals that Mark Darcy – her husband and father to her two children, died five years earlier.
Mark Darcy was played by Colin Firth in the Bridget Jones movies.
Bridget Jones fans have expressed their horror at the news that author Helen Fielding has killed off Mark Darcy in new book Mad About The Boy
Helen Fielding is due to speak at next month’s Cheltenham Literature Festival.
In the published extracts, Bridget Jones is revealed to have two children Mabel and Billy and a 30-year-old toyboy called Roxster.
Helen Fielding’s first book Bridget Jones’s Diary was published in 1996 and a sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason was released three years later.
Written in the form of a personal diary, the novels chronicle the life of a 30-something single working woman living in London.
In 2001, a film adaptation starring American actress Renee Zellweger, with Hugh Grant as womanizing Daniel Cleaver and Colin Firth as Darcy, was released.
Renee Zellweger was Oscar-nominated for the role and, in 2004, the sequel was released, although it was not as critically well received.
Mad About The Boy is due for release on October 10.
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Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, Helen Fielding’s first novel in 14 years, is to be published later this year.
The novel is Helen Fielding’s third about the hapless singleton, following Bridget Jones’s Diary, which was published in 1996, and sequel The Edge Of Reason in 1999.
The books sold more than 15 million copies in 40 countries and were adapted for the movies starring Renee Zellweger in the lead role, Colin Firth as Mark Darcy and Hugh Grant as Daniel Cleaver.
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, which will be published on October 10, is set in present day London and ‘represents a totally new phase in Bridget’s life’.
An extract released by publishers showed that Bridget Jones is still prone to mishaps.
She writes after sending a text message: “You see, this is the trouble with the modern world. If it was the days of letter-writing, I would never even have started to find his address, a pen, a piece of paper, an envelope, a stamp and gone outside at 11.30 p.m. to find a postbox.
“A text is gone at the brush of a fingertip, like a nuclear bomb or Exocet missile. Dating Rule No 1: Do not text when drunk.”
Bridget Jones Mad About The Boy, Helen Fielding’s first novel in 14 years, is to be published later this year
A statement from publishers Jonathan Cape said: “Bridget is older, she is still keeping a diary, but she is also immersed in texting and experimenting with social media, with an emphasis on <<social!>>.”
Jonathan Cape publishing director Dan Franklin said: “As a comic writer, Helen is without equal. Over 15 years ago she gave a voice to a generation of young women with the original Bridget book.
“Now they’ve grown up and she’s doing it again….this time with all the joys and complications of social media.”
Bridget Jones, who filled the pages of her diary with her failed efforts to find love and measured her life in the amount of cigarettes she smoked, units of alcohol she drank and number of calories she lost or gained, started life as a weekly column in The Independent in 1995.
Best-selling English author Helen Fielding recently wrote that the dating scene had become even more difficult for women thanks to the advent of email, Twitter, Facebook and texting.
Writing in the margins of her novel Bridget Jones’ Diary for a charity book sale, she said that she thought that finding a partner is “so much worse now”.
Oscar-winning actor Colin Firth recently dashed hopes that a third Bridget Jones film would be hitting the big-screen soon.
“Unfortunately, it might be a bit of a long wait. I wouldn’t say that it’s completely dead in the water, but the way it’s going you might be seeing Bridget Jones’ granddaughter’s story being told by the time we get there,” he quipped.
Thanks to the popularity of international best seller Fifty Shades Of Grey, one in ten women between the ages of 25 and 54 consider cold and complicated Christian Grey the most perfect fictional gentleman.
But Pride And Prejudice’s dashing Mark Darcy – who was initially similarly cold and complicated to Elizabeth Bennett – won the most votes overall, and has been voted the perfect fictional gentleman overall in the nationwide poll of British women.
Jane Austen’s upper-crust character, brought to life by actor Colin Firth in the 1995 hit BBC mini-series, was named number one by almost a third (29.60%) of British women polled.
Mark Darcy was followed by suave British spy James Bond (12.4%), first made world famous by handsome Scot Sean Connery in the 1962 movie Dr. No.
Thanks to best seller Fifty Shades Of Grey, one in 10 women between the ages of 25 and 54 consider Christian Grey the most perfect fictional gentleman
Five other actors went on to play the debonair secret agent, with Daniel Craig the latest with his most recent box office smash Skyfall.
And proof that women love a prince in real life or fantasy, the stock character Prince Charming was third, stealing one tenth of the vote.
The research of 1,000 women across the UK was commissioned by Johnson Cleaners in a bid to find who and what makes a gentleman in both fiction and reality.
While noble Noah from tear-jerker The Notebook, played by the dishy Ryan Gosling, was the most popular fictional gentleman with women under 25.
And a quarter of women of all ages told researchers they wished their partner or husband was more like their favorite celebrity gentleman. This rose to a third of women in Northern Ireland.
Paul Ogle, MD of Johnson Cleaners, said: “It is clear that many women love an old fashioned gentleman, either in fiction or reality. The qualities that make a gentleman are timeless and classic, just like the celebrities that came top of our research.”
But this figure drops to five per cent of all women in the UK insisting the infamous Christian Grey was their perfect fictional gent. But that’s still some 1.25 million ladies.
