Pride and Prejudice

Early nineteenth-century English country society, as seen through the clear and amused eyes of Jane Aus- ten, is not very different from society today. Mothers are determined that their daughters should marry well, daughters are determined to do what they wish, and fathers retire to their studies until the confusion is over and it is time to march down the aisle. Foolishness, pomposity, pride, and prejudice, are as rampant today as they were in 1813 when the book first appeared. But because Miss Austen was witty and wise she turned these foibles, comical and dangerous, into material for a work of art and presented, through the little landscape of the English countryside, the larger landscape of human nature.