This is one of my favorite books of all time and I’m so happy to announce this months book club pick. Last month’s pick was Lolita and it was an interesting read, but many readers found it hard to connect with the text in the beginning. But this month, I wanted to choose a book that goes in theme with Valentine’s Day, but also a book that is more than just a romance book. This book talks about family dynamics, feminism, and about the theme of “money talks.” So please please please, join me this month in reading this classic.
Pride and Prejudice is a book that is ahead of its time. Jane Austen wrote this book in 1800s and published it in 1811 under the surname of, By a Lady. It wasn’t until after she died, the Austen family published it under her real name, Jane Austen. The reason why Jane Austen didn’t publish it under her own name is because it would be social suicide. Jane Austen critiqued about the hypocrisy in the high class during the French Revolution and the age of the Guillotine as a women. And also, because at this time women couldn’t sign legal contracts so most women authors had to publish it anonymously.
This book also talks about the fact that women couldn’t inherit money from their parents nor could they make a living. Women at this time were expected to marry a wealthy man or at times, parents would choose who women would marry.
One of the reasons why I love about Pride and Prejudice is that the main characters, Elizabeth and Darcy, get married for love and not for money. Even though Darcy is very rich and arrogant in the story, Elizabeth educated Darcy on how not to think less of the lower class and through this, she ultimately married Darcy for him, and not his money.
Also, the minor characters are my favorite parts of the book as they represent the different types of people when they are in relationships.
Where to find this book:
Synopsis
This book starts with the Bennets. Mr. Bennet of Longbourn has five daughters, but his property couldn’t only be passed on to a male heir so it becomes his mission to get at least one of his daughters to get married so that they could support the rest of their siblings. This book starts with Mr. Bennet being desperate to get his daughters to marry rich men. In fact, the book starts with that famous quote that says, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Jane Austen uses first line as way to mock the idea that men with money want women. It also mocks the idea of how money talks to women for them.
As you read this book you start to understand the characters of the crazy 5 sisters. You follow the journey of the daughters going to balls, gossiping, play instruments, meet men, and gossip some more. But eventually, these sisters meet their fate, break a few hearts, get married in a disastrous way or normally, and live happily ever after. Or do they?
If you don’t like my summary, here are some other summaries with a few spoilers:
- Since its immediate success in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work “her own darling child” and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, “as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print.” The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen’s radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.
- Pride and Prejudice is a novel of manners 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 the British Regency. Elizabeth is the second of five daughters of a country gentleman living near the fictional town of Meryton in Hertfordshire, near London.Page 2 of a letter from Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra (11 June 1799) in which she first mentions Pride and Prejudice, using its working title First Impressions.Set in England in the early 19th century, Pride and Prejudice tells the story of Mr and Mrs Bennet’s five unmarried daughters after the rich and eligible Mr Bingley and his status-conscious friend, Mr Darcy, have moved into their neighbourhood. While Bingley takes an immediate liking to the eldest Bennet daughter, Jane, Darcy has difficulty adapting to local society and repeatedly clashes with the second-eldest Bennet daughter, Elizabeth.Though Austen set the story at the turn of the 19th century, it retains a fascination for modern readers, continuing near the top of lists of “most loved books.” It has become one of the most popular novels in English literature, selling over 20 million copies, 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.
- Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” centers on the conflict between marrying for love and marrying for economic reasons. None of Mr. Bennet’s five daughters can inherit his estate, so they are pressured into finding security in “good” marriages. Elizabeth Bennet, the main character, struggles with the societal pressures of marriage and resists Mr. Darcy’s advances and proposals. Eventually, however, she finds that she does love him, and for that reason, she decides to marry him.
About the Author
Jane Austen is that bitch. Urban dictionary defines, that bitch, as, “… a woman that men want and women are jealous of. That Bitch does what others wish they could do.”
Jane Austen parents were not wealthy at all as her father had three jobs to be able to maintain raising their family. In fact, Jane’s parents had their son adopted by a wealthy family. For what reasons? I don’t know, but growing up, Jane always visited her rich brother and would stay there months at a time. When she was living with her brother, that’s where she was able to understand and write about the high class. Jane Austen couldn’t get a job or even want to marry a rich man, but the only weapon she had was her pen. With her pen she was able to write plays and novels about the society during the present time she was living in.
This was the only thing Jane Austen had to her own, at her parents home. This was the very desk and chair where she did all of her writing.
Literary Criticism
I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen’s novels at so high a rate, which seems to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and so narrow … Suicide is more respectable.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin bone!
Mark Twain
These are commentary on Jane Austen’s work, by famous men who don’t have taste. Jane Austen is an acquired taste and uses a lot of satire and sarcasm to tell her stories and these privileged men know nothing about that. And because of that, I struggle with the idea of picking up a book by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mark Twain. If you don’t like Jane Austen, then I don’t like you.
It’s also important to note that not everyone understands the sarcasm and humor of Jane Austen. These men are busy writing about men and not focusing on the unethical balance of both sexes.
Quotes from the novel
“There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.”
“You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.”
“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”
Fan Art
Reading Schedule:
If you wanna daily: Read 3 chapters a day.
If you wanna read every 3 days: Read 6 chapters at a time.
If you wanna read once a week: Read 13 chapters.
Please, please, please join me in reading this book! I’ll be publishing a series of posts regarding this book, to make your reading experience even better! If you’ve read this beauty already, follow my blog as I will publish movie reviews, literary criticism, fan art, and much more on my blog.
Reading Litty 
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