LETRAS

Generations of readers have fallen in love with Jane Austen’s beloved classic Pride and Prejudice. The sparkling Elizabeth Bennet, the taciturn Fitzwilliam Darcy, and an array of characters that range from irrepressible to almost irredeemable, move through this comedy of manners about the danger of first impressions. Set in a provincial world away from London, Austen’s novel pokes fun at the machinations of courtship rituals while celebrating the importance of friendship and sisterhood.

Jane Austen began writing Pride and Prejudice when she was just twenty years old, though it would not be published until seventeen years later, in 1813. Widely regarded as one of the first romantic comedies in literary history, the novel’s entanglements and misunderstandings are deftly interwoven with a sharp, ironic critique of English society. Mrs Bennet is determined to secure a prosperous future for her five daughters through advantageous marriages. Her second-eldest, Elizabeth, is just as resolute that Fitzwilliam Darcy – the most arrogant, self-important man she has ever met – will not be one of her suitors. Darcy, in turn, considers Elizabeth an unfit match due to her lower social standing and limited connections. Yet the heart seldom obeys reason, and both are forced to examine their own prejudices in the pursuit of true love.

No novel in English has given more pleasure than Pride and Prejudice. Because it is one of the great works in our literature, critics in every generation reexamine and reinterpret it. But the rest of us simply fall in love with it--and with its wonderfully charming and intelligent heroine, Elizabeth Bennet. We are captivated not only by the novel's romantic suspense but also by the fascinations of the world we visit in its pages. The life of the English country gentry at the turn of the nineteenth century is made as real to us as our own, not only by Jane Austen's wit and feeling but by her subtle observation of the way people behave in society and how we are true or treacherous to each other and ourselves.