This may be a bit of a surprise. It was to me. The #8 book (alphabetically) on my list of “The 100 Most Loveable Novels in the English Language” turns out to be another novel from Jane Austen. One of the unwritten laws I wrote down for myself at the beginning of this project was that I wouldn’t include two books by the same author on the list, in a conscious effort to be as inclusive as possible with the authors I wanted to honor. And then I went and violated it before I even got out of the authors whose last names begin with “A.”
Don’t worry. It won’t happen again. Except one more time. But I do have to be true to the other unwritten rules for making my list: The book has to be widely recognized as a significant contribution to literature in English, it has to be well loved by many readers, and mostly it has to be a favorite of mine—basically a book I’d take with me to a desert island, or one I wouldn’t mind reading again and again. Pride and Prejudice checks all those boxes. In spades. How’s that for mixing my metaphors?
Considered by many to be Austen’s masterpiece, Pride and Prejudice (originally entitled “First Impressions”) was well received upon its publication in 1813, and has never been out of print in those 210 years. It appeared on Penguin Publishers’ list of their top 100 books chosen by their readers, and was also on the BBC’s list of the 100 Greatest British Novels, as well as the Norwegian Book Club/Norwegian Nobel Institute’s list of the 100 greatest world novels. The book has sold more than 20 million copies, and has inspired dramatic adaptations, film and television versions, and modern unauthorized sequels and twists, including such contemporary retellings as Bridget Jones’ Diary and Pride and Prejudice with Zombies, suggesting that the story and its themes may be universal.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” So begins Austen’s best-loved novel. No novel in the entire corpus of literature in English opens with a more effective or a more admired sentence, and only a very few can match it. The sentence captures the chief concerns of the novel, as well as the ironic and witty tone that permeates all of Austen’s works, but especially Pride and Prejudice. Even more than Emma, this novel is driven by the absolute necessity for women of this particular class of British society to marry, since the law allowed them no share in any property their fathers might have owned. That is the situation for Elizabeth Bennet, the novel’s protagonist and unifying consciousness, as the novel opens.
If you are one of the three readers of this post who has not actually read Pride and Prejudice, let me give you a nutshell summary of Elizabeth’s situation: She is one of five daughters of Mr. Bennet, a country gentleman who owns the Longbourn estate in Herefordshire. Because his property is entailed to a male relative, a clergyman nephew named Collins, it is imperative that the daughters make good (i.e., wealthy) marriages. This is Mrs. Bennet’s entire raison d’etre, and while her machinations toward that end are somewhat clumsy and gauche at times, and while her husband finds her ridiculous most of the time, she is not completely wrong, and that famous first sentence in large part reflects Mrs. Bennet’s voice.
Elizabeth’s sister Jane, a modest, well-mannered and good-humored young woman, seems to be the choice of a wealthy young man, Mr. Bingley, who has leased the estate bordering the Bennets’ home. Bingley has money through his family’s business interests, and so is not quite as highly regarded as his good friend, Mr. Darcy, who is one of the old landed aristocracy and so is considered, by everyone but especially by himself, as of higher rank than others.
Elizabeth has a poor first impression of Darcy when she meets him at a local ball and overhears him commenting to Bingley that he doesn’t think any of the women there would suit him. She considers him to be a haughty and unpleasant person. Most people associate Darcy with the “Pride” of the book’s title, while Elizabeth comes across as the “Prejudice” because of her quick judgment of Darcy’s character. Elizabeth also comes to believe (rightly, as it turns out) that it is Darcy who has deliberately talked Bingley out of asking for her sister’s hand in marriage.
Elizabeth finds a willing ally in a young military officer named Wickham who is stationed in the neighborhood. As it happens, Wickham’s father once managed the Darcy family estates, but Wickham complains to Elizabeth that Darcy has denied his rightful inheritance. The handsome and charming Wickham easily wins Elizabeth to his side, especially since she is already prejudiced against Darcy herself. But somehow Elizabeth senses something shallow about Wickham, so she is not tempted to see him as a potential husband…and he moves on to her younger sisters, the extremely silly and immature Lydia and Kitty who are, of course, her mother’s favorites.
Elizabeth does, however, to her surprise, receive a marriage proposal from the pompously self-important and nauseatingly sycophantic Collins, and shocks her mother—and Collins himself—by her refusal, though Mr. Bennet is quite satisfied by her good sense. Even more to Elizabeth’s surprise, she also receives a proposal from Mr. Darcy—a proposal she also refuses, taking Darcy completely aback. Elizabeth, intelligent, ironic, and level-headed (probably a great deal like her creator, Ms. Austen) defies the expectations of her class and gender (and mother) by her rejections of these suitors, and the chief progress of the novel will follow the working out of these various suitors and their eventual wives, though most of our interest will lie with Elizabeth and her character arc.
Like Emma, Pride and Prejudice is a delightful comedy of manners, written with brilliant wit and what Austen would call a characteristic “archness.” It contains some of the most memorable characters in British fiction, and its theme of the superficial perceived virtue that first impressions might create, as opposed to the deeply committed virtue of a truly good person, is one that still resonates, and might be considered a genuine “truth universally acknowledged.”