Pride and Prejudice By Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice 

This article is about the novel. For other uses, see Pride and Prejudice (disambiguation).

Pride and Prejudice
Author(s)	Jane Austen
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel of manners, Satire
Publisher	T. Egerton, Whitehall
Publication date	28 January 1813
Media type	Print (Hardback, 3 volumes)
OCLC Number	38659585
Preceded by	Sense and Sensibility
Followed by	Mansfield Park

Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England. Elizabeth is the second of five daughters of a country gentleman living near the fictional town of Meryton in Hertfordshire, near London.
Though the story is set at the turn of the 19th century, it retains a fascination for modern readers, continuing near the top of lists of "most loved books" such as The Big Read. It has become one of the most popular novels in English literature and receives considerable attention from literary scholars. Modern interest in the book has resulted in a number of dramatic adaptations and an abundance of novels and stories imitating Austen's memorable characters or themes. To date, the book has sold some 20 million copies worldwide.
As Anna Quindlen wrote,

"Pride and Prejudice is also about that thing that all great novels consider, the search for self. And it is the first great novel to teach us that that search is as surely undertaken in the drawing room making small talk as in the pursuit of a great white whale or the public punishment of adultery."

• 2 Main characters
  • 2.1 Elizabeth Bennet
  • 2.2 Mr Darcy
  • 2.3 Mr Bennet
  • 2.4 Mrs Bennet
  • 2.5 Jane Bennet
  • 2.6 Mary Bennet
  •  2.14 Aunt and Uncle Gardiner
  • 2.7 Catherine Bennet
  • 2.8 Lydia Bennet
  • 2.9 Charles Bingley
  • 2.10 Caroline Bingley
  • 2.11 George Wickham
  • 2.12 William Collins
  • 2.13 Lady Catherine de Bourgh
  • 2.15 Georgiana Darcy
  • 2.16 Charlotte Lucas
  • 2.17 Interrelationships
  • 2.18 Family trees
  •  
• 3 Major themes
  • 3.1 Marriage
  • 3.2 Money
  • 3.3 Class
  • 3.4 Self Knowledge

  • Title

    The title "Pride and Prejudice" is very likely taken from a passage in Fanny Burney's popular 1782 novel Cecilia, a novel Jane Austen is known to have admired:
    

    "The whole of this unfortunate business," said Dr. Lyster, "has been the result of PRIDE and PREJUDICE. ... Yet this, however, remember: if to PRIDE and PREJUDICE you owe your miseries, so wonderfully is good and evil balanced, that to PRIDE and PREJUDICE you will also owe their termination..." [capitalization as in the original].

    The terms are also used repeatedly in Robert Bage's influential 1796 Hermsprong.
    An earlier occurrence still is to be found in Chapter II of Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire published in 1776. In the discussion of slavery the following sentence appears: "Without destroying the distinction of ranks, a distant prospect of freedom and honours was presented, even to those whom PRIDE AND PREJUDICE almost disdained to number among the human species".
     

    Modern popularity

  • In 2003 the BBC conducted the largest ever poll for the "UK's Best-Loved Book" in which Pride and Prejudice came second, behind The Lord of the Rings.
  • In a 2008 survey of more than 15,000 Australian readers, Pride and Prejudice came first in a list of the 101 best books ever written.