Mr. Collins

The boorish, pompous, and ridiculous heir to the entailed Bennet estate, Mr. Collins is also a clergyman whose parish is in the estate of Lady Catherine de Bourgh. (What's that? You're not impressed?)

If you ever get the chance, check out the stuff Austen was writing when she was just a teenager. It's usually called her "Juvenilia" and it's basically a bunch of very short, totally laugh-snort-out-loud hilarious satires of the kind of flowery, sentimental junk that was being published in that day. Seriously, it's amazing.

Why do we bring this up? It's mostly to say that this woman knows funny. For example, this guy – our old friend Mr. Collins – is a silly and ludicrous idiot who deserves his own spin-off sitcom, stat. The amazing way he kowtows to Lady de Bourgh even when he's not in her presence? The crazy, formal, totally bonkers language he uses to propose, and keep proposing, to Elizabeth even in the face of her repeated no-thank-yous? How his wife strongly encourages his gardening habit to get him out of the house as much as possible? Oh, comic gold, friends, comic gold.