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Pride and Prejudicea study guide to the novel
Pride and Prejudice (1813) has the famous opening line "It is a fact universally recognised that a man with a fortune must be in search a wife." It's a story of the empty-headed and garrulous Mrs Bennet, who has but one aim in life - to find a good match for each of her daughters. Her husband is a mild-mannered and indolent man, much given to making witty cynicisms, and he refuses to take this vulgar prospect seriously. The pride of the title belongs to its hero Mr Darcy, and the prejudice to heroine Elizabeth Bennet, who has lessons to learn from life. This was Jane Austen's first major success as a novelist - though not the first of her books to be written. It's a perfect place for a reader to start - witty, sophisticated writing, and some well-observed character sketches. It seems as fresh today as ever. PLOT SUMMARY
At the same time Elizabeth begins a friendship with Mr. Wickham, a militia officer who relates a prior acquaintance with Darcy. Wickham tells her that he has been seriously mistreated by Darcy. Elizabeth immediately seizes upon this information as another reason to hate Darcy. Ironically, but unbeknownst to her, Darcy finds himself gradually drawn to Elizabeth. Just as Bingley appears to be on the point of proposing marriage he quits Netherfield, leaving Jane confused and upset. Elizabeth is convinced that Bingley's sisters have conspired with Darcy to separate Jane and Bingley. Before Bingley leaves, Mr. Collins, the male relative who is to inherit Longbourn, makes a sudden appearance and stays with the Bennets. He is a recently ordained clergyman employed by the wealthy and patronizing Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Though he was partially entreated to visit by his patroness, Collins has another reason for visiting: he wishes to find a wife from among the Bennet sisters. Mr. Bennet and Elizabeth are amused by his self-important and pedantic behaviour. He immediately enters pursuit of Jane; however, when Mrs. Bennet mentions her preoccupation with Mr. Bingley, he turns to Elizabeth. He soon proposes marriage to Elizabeth, who refuses him, much to her mother's distress. Collins quickly recovers and proposes to Elizabeth's close friend, Charlotte Lucas, who immediately accepts him. Once the marriage is arranged, Charlotte asks Elizabeth to come for an extended visit. In the spring, Elizabeth joins Charlotte and her cousin at his parish in Kent. The parish is adjacent to Rosings Park, the grand manor of Mr. Darcy's aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, where Elizabeth is frequently invited. While calling on Lady Catherine, Mr. Darcy encounters Elizabeth. She discovers from a cousin of Darcy that it was he who separated Bingley and Jane. Soon after, Darcy admits his love of Elizabeth and proposes to her. Insulted by his high-handed and insulting manner of proposing, Elizabeth refuses him. When he asks why she should refuse him, she confronts him with his sabotage of Bingley's relationship with Jane and Wickham's account of their dealings. Deeply shaken by Elizabeth's vehemence and accusations, Darcy writes her a letter justifying his actions. The letter reveals that Wickham soon dissipated his legacy-settlment (from Darcy's father's estate), then came back to Darcy requesting permanent patronage; he became angry when rejected, accusing Darcy of cheating him. To exact revenge and to make off with part of the Darcy family fortune, he attempted to seduce Darcy's young sister Georgiana - to gain her hand and fortune, almost persuading her to elope with him - before he was found out and stopped. Darcy justifies his actions from having observed that Jane did not show any reciprocal interest in his friend; thus his aim in separating them was mainly to protect Bingley from heartache. After reading the letter, Elizabeth begins to question both her family's behaviour and Wickham's credibility; she concludes that Wickham is not as trustworthy as his easy manners would indicate, and that her early impressions of Darcy may not have been accurate. Soon after receiving the letter Elizabeth returns home. Some months later, during a tour of Derbyshire with her aunt and uncle, Elizabeth visits Pemberley, Darcy's estate. Unexpectedly, Darcy arrives at Pemberly as they tour its grounds. He makes an effort to be gracious and welcoming to them, thus strengthening Elizabeth's newly favourable impression of him. Darcy then introduces Elizabeth to his sister Georgiana. He treats her uncle and aunt very well, and finds them of a more sound character than her other relatives, whom he previously dismissed as socially inferior. Elizabeth and Darcy's renewed acquaintance is cut short when news arrives that Elizabeth's younger sister Lydia has run away with Wickham. Initially, the Bennets believes that Wickham and Lydia have eloped, but soon it is surmised that Wickham has no plans to marry Lydia. Lydia's antics threaten the family's reputation and the Bennet sisters with social ruin. Elizabeth and her aunt and uncle hurriedly leave Derbyshire, and Elizabeth is convinced that Darcy will avoid her from now on. Soon, thanks to the intervention of Elizabeth's uncle, Lydia and Wickham are found and married. After the marriage, Wickham and Lydia make a visit to Longbourne. While bragging to Elizabeth, Lydia comments that Darcy was present at the wedding. Surprised, Elizabeth sends an inquiry to her aunt, from whom she discovers that Darcy was responsible for both finding the couple and arranging their marriage at great expense to himself. Soon after, Bingley and Darcy return to the area. Bingley proposes marriage to Jane, and this news starts rumours that Darcy will propose to Elizabeth. Lady Catherine travels to Longbourn with the sole aim of confronting Elizabeth and demanding that she never accept such a proposal. Elizabeth refuses to bow to Lady Catherine's demands. When news of this obstinacy reaches Darcy, it convinces him that her opinion of him has changed. When he visits, he once again proposes marriage. Elizabeth accepts, and the two become engaged. Elizabeth and Darcy settle at Pemberley where Mr. Bennet visits often. Mrs. Bennet remains frivolous and silly, and often visits the new Mrs. Bingley and talking of the new Mrs. Darcy. Later, Jane and Bingley move from Netherfield to avoid Jane's mother and Meryton relations and to locate near the Darcys in Derbyshire. Elizabeth and Jane manage to teach Kitty greater social grace, and Mary learns to accept the difference between herself and her sisters' beauty and mixes more with the outside world. Lydia and Wickham continue to move often, leaving their debts for Jane and Elizabeth to pay off. At Pemberley, Elizabeth and Georgiana grow close, though Georgiana is surprised by Elizabeth's playful treatment of Darcy. Lady Catherine stays very angry with her nephew's marriage but over time the relationship between the two is repaired and she eventually decides to visit them. Elizabeth and Darcy also remain close with her uncle and aunt. CHARACTERS
BBC TV dramatisation Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet GENESIS OF THE TEXT The novel was originally titled First Impressions by Jane Austen, and was written between October 1796 and August 1797. It was submitted for publication to a London bookseller by her father, but rejected. Austen revised the text between 1811 and 1812, re-naming it Pride and Prejudice, and sold the manuscript outright for £110. It was published in three volumes in January 1813, priced at 18s. Two further editions were published in the next four years. The scholarly edition produced by R.W.Chapman in 1923 has become the standard edition on which many modern editions of the novel are based. JANE AUSTEN'S WRITING 
The manuscript of Sanditon RESOURCE MATERIALS
SELECTED CRITICISM F.W. Bradbrook, Jane Austen and her Predecessors, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966. Julia Prewitt Brown, Jane Austen's Novels: Social Change and Literary Form, Cambridge (Mass), 1979. Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975, revised 1987. W.A. Craick, Jane Austen: the Six Novels, London: Methuen, 1965. D.D. Devlin, Jane Austen and Education, London, 1975. Alistair M. Duckworth, The Improvement of the Estate: A Study of Jane Austen's Novels, Baltimore (Md) and London, 1971. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-century Literary Imagination, New Haven and London, 1979. John Halperin (ed), Jane Austen Bicentenary Essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975. Barbara Hardy, A Reading of Jane Austen, London, 1975. Joycelyn Harris, Jane Austen's Art of Memory, Cambridge, 1989. Claudia L. Johnson, Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel, Chicago and London, 1988. Margaret Kirkham, Jane Austen: Feminism and Fiction, Brighton and Totawa (NJ) 1983. Mary Lascelles, Jane Austen and her Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963. A. Walton Litz, Jane Austen: a Study of her Artistic Development, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965. Juliet McMaster (ed), Jane Austen's Achievement, London: Macmillan, 1976. David Monaghan, Jane Austen in a Social Context, Totawa (NJ) 1981. Laura G. Mooneyham, Romance, Language, and Education in Jane Austen's Novels, New York and Basingstoke, 1988. Susan Morgan, In the Meantime: Character and Perception in Jane Austen's Fiction, Chicago, 1980. Norman Page, The Language of Jane Austen, London: Blackwell, 1972. K.C. Phillips, Jane Austen's English, London: Andre Deutsch, 1970. F.B. Pinion, A Jane Austen Companion, London: Macmillan, 1976. Warren Roberts, Jane Austen and the French Revolution, New York, 1979. B.C. Southam, Jane Austen's Literary Manuscripts: A Study of the Novelist's Development through the Surviving Papers, London and New York, 1964. B.C. Southam (ed), Critical Essays on Jane Austen, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969. B.C. Southam (ed), Jane Austen: the Critical Heritage, 2 vols, London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1968-87. Alison G. Sulloway, Jane Austen and the Province of Womanhood, Philadelphia, 1989. Tony Tanner, Jane Austen, London: Macmillan, 1986. Ian Watt (ed), Jane Austen: a Collection of Critical Essays, Englewood Cliffs (NJ): Prentice-Hall, 1963. OTHER NOVELS by Jane Austen Click on book jacket cover for details at Amazon
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