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Pride and Prejudice
 

Pride and Prejudice

by Jane Austen

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
Next to the exhortation at the beginning of Moby-Dick, "Call me Ishmael," the first sentence of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice must be among the most quoted in literature. And certainly what Melville did for whaling Austen does for marriage--tracing the intricacies... (read more)

Top tags: classic,  fiction,  romance,  jane austen,  classic literature (all tags)

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Amazon Reviews (5)
 

Most Helpful Reviews

Liked It

9 of 9 members found this review helpful.
Frabjous Day
  • Rated 5 stars

“All novels, but comedies in particular, lose much in translation. There are some, however, which are so transcendently brilliant that they lose nothing, at least, in time. Not even in centuries.
Pride and Prejudice is radiant, so witty and so delighted with its own irreverence that I know it will have people laughing for the centuries to come. Of the heroine Elizabeth Bennet, Austen herself was to remark, "I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever...”

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Didn’t Like It

2 of 6 members found this review helpful.
Gregory
  • Rated 2 stars

“I think I'm just in a bad position to read a book like this. Even as a person who has been pretty spoiled most of his life, I cannot relate to the the Bennets' qualm about being so relatively poor. How poor can you possibly be when you have servants actually cooking your meals, doing your laundry, and making your bed?

Yes, yes, I know I'm just supposed to understand that that's how things were back then. But the whole culture back then is such a distraction for me when I know I...”

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Community:
  • Rated 4.471529 stars
Amazon:
  • Rated 0 stars
  

Newest Comments

  • matthew

    matthew said:

    “I'm glad I'm not the only one who says Elizabeth married Darcy not out of love, but for his money.”

    posted Sunday, August 3 2008 ( | view 2 replies )
  • Éowyn

    éowyn said:

    “does it bother anyone else that darcy's letter to elizabeth further insults her family when he is explaining the jane/bingley relationship? i really love P&P but that is always something that has kind of bugged me...”

    posted Tuesday, July 29 2008 ( | view 4 replies )
  • zami m

    zami m said:

    “actually i didn't read this book yet but i bought it last week and im feeling it's good i read all ur say about this book and i see that you may right but its always about what u looking for when u wanna read a book so some wanna passion,love that through hardships survive and some looking logical things so im wondering is this book that bad and there is no love and i mean good things? selina i agree with this idea about that what he done for her make him gentleman but not make her to fell in love - ehehhe while im stilll reading i will stop here , just my own point of view so dont take me bad way.”

    posted Saturday, July 19 2008 ( | view 2 replies )
  • Selina C

    selina c said:

    “No. I am not misreading Austen. I am merely pointing out the ironies. And any reader of Austen worth their salt appreciates her ironies.. She exposes his false charm, yes, but the reason why she does that is to provide foil for Mr Darcy and to expose Elizabeth's cherished ideals about marriage as impractical.

    You talk about Lydia's prospects - Elizabeth lives in the petit-bourgeouis world, Darcy saves her family yes, but where exactly is the romance or passion in that? It's propriety. It's about being a gentleman. I'm not saying that is not admirable, but that doesn't convince the reader Elizabeth actually is in love with Darcy.

    Austen was an acute observer. Into this world, she brings us the courtship of Elizabeth and Darcy as the main plot, but is not the whole story, by any means. The beginning of the novel talks about marriage, and the end, there are not one, but two marriages. To constantly insist that P&P is a romance is to ignore everything else that is wonderful about the novel.”

    posted Saturday, July 5 2008
  • Zero

    zero said:

    “You strangely misread Miss Austen's target in the case of Wickham; it's charm that she is exposing as the false virtue. As for condemnations of the petit-bourgeois ("petit-gentry" in this case) and such, that's a modern attitude without appreciation for the times and context of the story. The Bennet family is already threatened without an heir and the only hope for the daughters is to marry -- well if possible. Had Lydia returned home a "fallen woman" it would have done incalculable damage to her sisters prospects and, needless to say, ruined her own.

    As for love: many women fall in love with the men who save them. Darcy saves both Lydia from disgrace and Jane from disappointment. It is not surprising that Liz, not to mention a host of female readers, fall for Mr. Darcy. He certainly appears, as a man of true virtue, to be worthy of such feeling to this reader. Not only is he the mate of choice for Miss Bennet, but I rather suspect the fantasy suitor of our author as well.

    Be a reader average, poor, superior, or scholastic I think that the majority recognize a romance when they read one and every Austen novel is a romance.”

    posted Saturday, July 5 2008
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