From Goodreads: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
So begins Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's witty comedy of manners--one of the most popular novels of all time--that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues. Renowned literary critic and historian George Saintsbury in 1894 declared it the "most perfect, the most characteristic, the most eminently quintessential of its author's works," and Eudora Welty in the twntieth century described it as "irresistible and as nearly flawless as any fiction could be."
Thoughts: Yay! I finished! And ahead of time! As you may or may not recall, I was reading this as part of a challenge I set back in May. The idea was to have read the book by the end of August, but I found I was losing momentum by sticking to a timeline so in the end I just kept reading until I was done!
It was worth it. As I got closer to the end, I got more and more engrossed .I knew what was going to happen (I'd watched the Keira Knightly movie and the BBC production), but I wanted to know how Austen had written it. In the end I loved it. I still don't find the classics easy to read, but knowing the story via movies or television definitely makes it easier and makes me stress less about the language.
I've also finished the last part of the challenge - watching the Lizzie Bennet Diaries - but that's another post! In the meantime, I've signed up to Miss Dove's Emma Challenge. Bring it on!
Challenges: eBook challenge, P&P challenge