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Item Condition: Collectible; Very Good
Pride and Prejudice (Wordsworth Hardback Library) Austen, Jane
INTRODUCTION
THE FIRST SENTENCE of Pride and Prejudice is perhaps the most famous opening of all English comedies of social manners. It encapsulates the ambitions of the empty-headed Mrs Bennet, and her desire to find a good match for each of her five daughters from
among the middle-class young men of the family's acquaintance, In this she receives little help from her mild and indolent husband, who regards her aspirations with a tolerant and witty cynicism. The main strand of this muli-layered story concerns the prejudice of Elizabeth Bennet against the apparent arrogance of her future suitor, Fitzgerald Darcy, and the blow to his pride in falling in love with her. Though a satisfactory outcome is eventually achieved, it is set against the social and amatory machinations of many other figures, anong them the haughty Lady Catherine de Bourgh, the fatuous Mr Collins, the
younger Bennet daughter Lydia, and her lover Wickham, with whom she scandalously elopes.