Pride and Prejudice (novel)

From the very first lines, Jane Austen’s classic novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’ pokes affectionate fun at Georgian England.

The opening lines of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (1813) are arguably the best-loved in all English fiction. In the drawing-room of Longbourn, a gentleman’s residence near the Hertfordshire village of Meryton, pretty but empty-headed Mrs Bennet is all of a flutter because there is a new neighbour in Netherfield Park.

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Elizabeth Bennet began to wonder if being Mr Darcy’s wife might have had its compensations.

Elizabeth Bennet has recently turned down a proposal of marriage from Mr Darcy; now, having recently visited his snobbish aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, she is on a guided tour round Mr Darcy’s own magnificent country house in Derbyshire, ‘Pemberley’.

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Making friends is, like playing music, not just a matter of natural talent.

Elizabeth Bennet and Colonel Fitzwilliam have been teasing the Colonel’s cousin, Mr Darcy, about his stiff and awkward behaviour in company. Mr Darcy claims he cannot help it, but Elizabeth is having none of that.

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There is an art to making one’s compliments seem artless.

Mr Bennet delights in meeting ridiculous people. His cousin, the Revd Mr Collins, is a revelation, singing the praises of his snobbish neighbour Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and her smothered, chronically ill daughter Anne.

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