Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen

Mr. Bennet of Longbourn estate has five daughters, but because his property is entailed it can only be passed from male heir to male heir. Consequently, Mr. Bennet's family will be destitute upon his death. Because his wife also lacks an inheritance, it is imperative that at least one of the girls marry well to support the others upon his death, which is a motivation that drives the plot. Jane Austen's opening line--"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife"-- is a sentence filled with irony and sets the tone for the book. The novel revolves around the importance of marrying for love, not simply for economic gain or social prestige, despite the communal pressure to make a good match. Pride and Prejudice has delighted readers for years, consistently appearing near the top of lists of "most-loved books" among literary scholars and the reading public. It has become one of the most popular novels in English literature with over 20 million copies sold and has inspired many derivatives that abound in modern literature. For more than a century, amateur and professional dramatic adaptations, reprints, unofficial sequels, films, and TV versions of Pride and Prejudice have portrayed the memorable characters and themes of the novel, reaching mass audiences.