Pride and Prejudice

by Jane Austen

Ebook

English language

Published Aug. 5, 2008 by Penguin Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-4406-5757-3

(47 reviews)

"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 the delightful adventures of the witty and free-spirited Elizabeth Bennet and the proud but quite eligible Mr. Darcy in one of the first romantic comedies in the history of the novel.

Enriched eBook Features Editor Juliette Wells provides the following specially commissioned features for this Enriched eBook Classic:

Filmography Nineteenth-Century Reviews Chronology Further Reading What Austen Ate How to Prepare Tea Austen Sites to Visit in England Map of Sites from the Novel Behaving Yourself: Etiquette and Dancing in Austen's Day Illustrations of Fashion, Home Décor, Architecture, and Transportation Enriched eBook Notes The enriched eBook format invites readers to go beyond the pages of these beloved works and gain more insight into the life and times of an author and the period in which the …

Enriched eBook Features Editor Juliette Wells provides the following specially commissioned features for this Enriched eBook Classic:

106 editions

bookwyrm_user reviewed Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Subtle and thorough

5 stars

This is the best book I read this year so far, and that's a surprise to me. Normally I tend to read fantasy and science fiction, so historical or romantic fiction is usually not my forte. I guess I was a little prejudiced and had too much pride to pick it up before, thinking it was maybe more of a book for girls. I'm glad I picked it up. I absolutely loved the prose, to me it showcases English as a beautiful language. The themes of the book are quite interesting to me. A society with a rigid class system, strongly defined gender roles, and social norms come across truly alien. The level of self reflection and personal journey of the protagonist navigating all this was capivating. It's probably not for everyone, but I highly recommend.

7raben reviewed Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Classic

5 stars

I read because it was a freebie on my ebook reader. Have watched the BBC series several times before and it was quite nice to enjoy the story as a book.

gregorgross reviewed Stolz und Vorurteil by Jane Austen

Ich liebe Bücher aus dem 19. Jahrhundert!

5 stars

Und zwar u.a. insbesondere wegen ihres Tons. Dieses hier wurde von Jane Austen zwar bereits 1797 geschrieben, erschien aber erst 1813 oder so ähnlich.

Es geht um die Familie Bennet und ihre fünf Töchter, die von ihrer Mutter unter die Haube zu bringen sind. Die Mutter stellt sich dabei, sagen wir mal, töricht und zuweilen sehr peinlich an. Die jungen Frauen sind nicht alle am Heiraten interessiert oder betrachten die Brautschau als den wichtigsten Teil ihres Lebens, aber für die meisten wird am Ende alles gut. Sehr gut.

Was ich beim Anschauen der Bridget Jones-Filme gar nicht so mitbekam damals sind die Referenzen auf dieses Buch. Es gibt Mr. Darcy, der auch in diesem Buch der positive Held ist, und Mr. Wickham (von wicked - böse?), dessen hübsch anzuschauenden, aber definitiv nicht guten Teil Hugh Grant übernahm.

Ich habe die 470 Seiten in 6 Tagen runter gerissen und war dreie …

Und zwar u.a. insbesondere wegen ihres Tons. Dieses hier wurde von Jane Austen zwar bereits 1797 geschrieben, erschien aber erst 1813 oder so ähnlich.

Ich habe die 470 Seiten in 6 Tagen runter gerissen und war dreie davon gar nicht am Lesen. Sehr gutes Buch. Hab ich schon gesagt, daß ich die Bücher des 19. Jahrhunderts liebe?

anka.trini reviewed Stolz und Vorurteil by Jane Austen

Review of 'Stolz und Vorurteil' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Nichts als Liebe für diesen Roman!
Ich glaube, ich habe das Buch jetzt zum vierten oder fünften Mal gelesen (zweimal davon sogar dieses Jahr) und bin immer noch begeistert.

Mr Darcy ist einfach ein Traum von einem Mann. Wie er an sich arbeitet und sich zum Besseren ändert, weil Lizzie ihm seine Fehler gezeigt hat und er sich ihre Liebe sichern möchte. Da möchte ich echt dahin schmelzen! Das ist die Messlatte, die ich an Männer habe.

Für mein eigenes Liebesleben wäre es wohl besser, wenn ich diese Geschichte nicht so oft lesen würde, aber ich verliere mich so gerne in ihr. Immer wenn ich das Buch lese, fühle ich mich wie frisch verliebt.

Zauberhaft, einfach zauberhaft!

사요한 Yohan Yukiya 📚 reviewed Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Prestwick House Literary Classics)

Review of 'Pride and Prejudice' on 'GoodReads'

No rating

Intriguing

A different take on the same plot while sticking as close as possible to reality and possibility. Taking on factors usually ignored in other stories of the same device.

사요한 Yohan Yukiya 📚 reviewed Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Prestwick House Literary Classics)

Review of 'Pride and Prejudice' on 'GoodReads'

5 stars

Intriguing

The first few chapters weren't captivating. Personally, it has to do with the flow or arrangement of the story. One chapter, we re talking about the present-past, in the next chapter, it's a very lengthy, multiple chapters, past-past before it caught up to present-past.

There were also a very confusing switching between first-person, third-person limited, and third-person god. The sub-sections barely worked because of it.

However, I'm giving 4 out of 5 because of the story itself. The plot. The repercussions considered of what happened which is not tackled in any other similar story in this genre, or rarely touched. It is refreshing and it stays within the realms of possibility and reality as much as possible.

Stephen Hayes reviewed Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

None

5 stars

My wife Val got [b:Death comes to Pemberley|12875355|Death Comes to Pemberley|P.D. James|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1318936579s/12875355.jpg|17822238] by [a:P.D. James|344522|P.D. James|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1245013536p2/344522.jpg] as a Christmas present, and passed it on to me to read once she had finished it. It claims so be a sequel to [b:Pride and prejudice|1885|Pride and Prejudice|Jane Austen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320399351s/1885.jpg|3060926], so I thought I'd better re-read the latter, since I had last read it about 50 years ago, before reading the new one.

Some books are disappointing when one re-reads them after a long time; they never seem to be as good as one remembered. But [b:Pride and prejudice|1885|Pride and Prejudice|Jane Austen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320399351s/1885.jpg|3060926] was far better than I had remembered it, and I found I had to add a couple of stars to its rating. Yesterday I had a number of things I needed to do, and I found that I never got them done, I had to go back to reading this book until I had finished it. It was a page-turner, as they like to say in the blurbs.

It's been around a long time, so I won't say much about the characters and the plot, assuming that most people have read it, and if you haven't, well, it's still selling 200 years after it was first published, so you shouldn't find it too hard to get a copy.

One of the things that did strike me the second time round was the characters. The main characters are extraordinarily well-drawn. I can't really remember what I thought the first time, but this is what struck me the second time.

So if I don't write about the plot and characters, what can I say about what I think of the book?

I can perhaps try to work out why I liked it so much more the second time than the first time.

And I think the reason is, well, pride and prejudice.

Pride and prejudice on my part, that is.

At the beginning of 1963 I went to study at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg (UNP), and one of the compulsory courses was English I. I had previously attended the University of the Witwatersrand and had already taken English I, twice. So I was a bit resentful about having to take it a third time. Couldn't they just give me a credit for it and let me study something more interesting? It was pride, you see.

The prejudice was a bit more complex.

At school I had read [b:Brave new world|5129|Brave New World|Aldous Huxley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327865608s/5129.jpg|3204877] by [a:Aldous Huxley|3487|Aldous Huxley|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1222974446p2/3487.jpg], and had been very impressed with it. When I got to Wits University, I didn't mind reading it again. It was, I thought, a Good Book. Another, which I had first encountered at the university was [a:William Golding|306|William Golding|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1198342496p2/306.jpg]'s [b:Lord of the flies|7624|Lord of the Flies|William Golding|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327869409s/7624.jpg|2766512]. It also struck me as being a very good book. Both had (then) been published within the last 25-30 years.

When I got to the Uuniversity of Natal, the books they gave us to read for English I were all so old. Joseph Conrad was relatively recent, but the others were by Jane Austen and people like that. In one tutorial I ventured to ask about it, and the lecturer, [a:Christina van Heyningen] told me that Jane Austen's books were timeless classics, and that people would still be reading them in 100 or 200 years time, long after Huxley and Golding had been forgotten. I was not inclined to believe her. My pride would not let me.

I also soon discovered that the English Department at UNP were, on the whole, great fans of F.R. Leavis, the Cambridge University critic, who narrowed down English literature, or at least novels, to authors like [a:Jane Austen|1265|Jane Austen|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1282032472p2/1265.jpg], [a:Charles Dickens|239579|Charles Dickens|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1183239979p2/239579.jpg], [a:Joseph Conrad|3345|Joseph Conrad|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1198538984p2/3345.jpg] and [a:D.H. Lawrence|17623|D.H. Lawrence|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1278173884p2/17623.jpg], dismissing the rest as inferior. One English Honours student once asked the professor whether he should read [b:Ulysses|338798|Ulysses|James Joyce|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327869027s/338798.jpg|2368224] and was advised not to, as it would "blunt your critical faculties".

Some of us studetns tended to rebel against this, and republished in a student magazine, the Anglican Witness a satire of their attitude, with a Leavis-style review of [b:Winnie the Pooh|99107|Winnie-the-Pooh|A.A. Milne|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298440130s/99107.jpg|1225592], with the title "Another book to cross off your list", saying that now he had got down to [a:D.H. Lawrence|17623|D.H. Lawrence|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1278173884p2/17623.jpg] alone, not even Austen, Dickens and Conrad were worth reading. So we saw the English Department as prejudiced, and so I became prejudiced against any books they recommended.

The values of the characters in Jane Austen's novels also seemed screwed up to me. The characters, heroes and villains alike, all seemed to put a money value on everything, including love and marriage, and to assume that that was right and natural. Falling in love seemed to be very much governed by the fortune possessed by, or at least due to, the potential beloved. And everything else seemed to be governed by their artificial rules of politeness. It was an utterly alien culture, and difficult to enter into.

So there was pride, and prejudice, and youth. The first time I read it, I was the same age as the protagonists in the story. I despised them for their narrow sheltered English country gentry lives. What could they know about human relationships when they moved in such a stiflingly narrow social circle, and were so obsessed by social climbing?

On rereading it, I am fifty years older, and not a callow youth any more. I can see things in Jane Austen's writing I was blind to before. Her characters do indeed move within a narrow social circle, but for Jane Austen that makes it possible to pay less attention to the setting, and rather more to the relationships of people within it. The gentle satire that whooshed over my head the first time struck me forcibly this time. And the characters seemed sensitive to nuances of human behaviour that completely passed me by the first time.

Fifty years later I have had much more experience of different cultures, and learnt, to some extent, to adapt to different cultural worlds. and that perhaps makes it easier to adapt to the cultural world that Jane Austen's characters inhabit.

But I return to my first prejudice.

Can any English I student appreciate Jane Austen? Are they not too young, and too inexperienced to appreaciate her books? Is it not better to read works like [b:Brave new world|5129|Brave New World|Aldous Huxley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327865608s/5129.jpg|3204877] and [b:Lord of the flies|7624|Lord of the Flies|William Golding|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327869409s/7624.jpg|2766512], and save Jane Austen for those who are old enough to appreciate her? Isn't youth wasted on the young?

And when I reread [b:Brave new world|5129|Brave New World|Aldous Huxley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327865608s/5129.jpg|3204877] after 40 years or so, I was disappointed. It wasn't nearly as good as I had found it at 16. [a:Christina van Heyningen] was right. Austen improved with the passing of time; the other books palled.