Pride and Prejudice - Hardcover

Austen, Jane

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525183817 ISBN 13: 9780525183815

Publisher: E P Dutton, 1976

Synopsis

The novel is set in England in the early 19th century and tells the story of Mr and Mrs Bennet's five unmarried daughters after two gentlemen have moved into their neighbourhood: the rich and eligible Mr Bingley, and his status-conscious friend, the even richer and more eligible Mr Darcy. While Bingley takes an immediate liking to the eldest Bennet daughter, Jane, Darcy is disdainful of local society and repeatedly clashes with the Bennets' lively second daughter, Elizabeth. Pride and Prejudice retains a fascination for modern readers, continuing near the top of lists of "most loved books". It has become one of the most popular novels in English literature, selling over 20 million copies, and receives considerable attention from literary scholars. Likewise, it has paved the way for archetypes that abound in many contemporary literature of our time. Modern interest in the book has resulted in a number of dramatic adaptations and an abundance of novels and stories imitating Austen's memorable characters or themes

About this title

Review:

Elizabeth Bennet is the perfect Austen heroine: intelligent, generous, sensible, incapable of jealousy or any other major sin. That makes her sound like an insufferable goody-goody, but the truth is she's a completely hip character who ,if provoked, is not above skewering her antagonist with a piece of her exceptionally sharp, yet always polite, 18th-century wit. The real point of the book though, the critical question which will keep you fixated throughout, is: will Elizabeth and Mr Darcy hook up? Read this genuine all-time classic and discover the answer while enjoying a story that has charmed generation after generation.

Review:

"I read all of Jane Austen's novels very early on and learnt to love her economy of style and precision. She still seems to me the finest writer in the English language. Pride and Prejudice always bears another reading, and I think in many ways it is a perfect rendition of the novel form." -- Philippa Gregory

"If ever we wished to identify with a character, it must be Lizzie... She's quick-witted, lively, self-assured and yet so infallibly human, and she takes us on that most important journey - the path to self-knowledge." -- Monica Ali

"Jane Austen is one of my favourite writers... very acute, very perceptive, and writing in close and honest detail about the tiny preoccupations of women's lives - preoccupations which speak of much larger social and human issues." -- Helen Fielding

"Jane Austen was writing about boring people with desperately limited lives... Yet she writes about these humdrum lives with such empathy that they seem endlessly fascinating." -- Mark Haddon

"This is the flowering of the English novel. It is witty and wise; there is not a single flaw in this book, or a single moment that you do not relish." --Colm Tóibín

About this edition

• Publisher: E P Dutton
• Publication date: 1976
• ISBN 10: 0525183817
• ISBN 13: 9780525183815
• Binding: Hardcover