'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.' Thus memorably begins Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, one of the world's most popular novels. Pride and Prejudice—Austen's own 'darling child'—tells the story of fiercely independent Elizabeth Bennet, one of five sisters who must marry rich, as she confounds the arrogant, wealthy Mr. Darcy. What ensues is one of the most delightful and engrossingly readable courtships known to literature, written by a precocious Austen when she was just twenty-one years old.
Humorous and profound, and filled with highly entertaining dialogue, this witty comedy of manners dips and turns through drawing-rooms and plots to reach an immensely satisfying finale. In the words of Eudora Welty, Pride and Prejudice is as 'irresistible and as nearly flawless as any fiction could be.'
Carol Howard, educated at SUNY Purchase and Columbia University, where she received her Ph.D. in 1999, chairs the English Department and teaches in the Theater Department at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina. She has published essays on early British and contemporary African-American women writers and has coedited two books on British writers (1996, 1997). Her primary scholarly interest is the literature of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England.
Source: back cover
Pride and Prejudice I feel is the ultimate love story. Our heroine, Elizabeth Bennet is pretty,witty and wise with a great sense of time and humor. Mr. Darcy is rude, proud and very disagreeable, even if he is worth ten thousand a year. Both cannot stand each other. So what makes this the ultimate love story?
Jane Austen builds up this romance like someone climbing Mount Everest. The beginning is easy to fall into with a lovely setting and becoming acquainted with the characters. Through Elizabeth Bennet's eyes the reader forms an opinion of all the players no matter how prejudiced they may be and you go with them because Lizzy's thoughts reign you in. In the middle, the reader finds it hard to breath because of all the different accounts of the goings on when concerning Mr. Darcy and his childhood friend Mr. Wickham, a dashing young man in the militia charismatic enough to win any girl's heart. The reader is warned or is hinted that one should be wary of Wickham but the dislike and prejudice towards Darcy is so great that it is quickly put aside. The ending is breath taking with all the elements put into place as they should be making the climb well worth it.
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11 March, 2012:
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