Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is a romantic novel published anonymously in three volumes in 1813. The burgeoning relationship between Elizabeth Bennet, the daughter of a country gentleman, and Fitzwilliam Darcy, a rich aristocratic landowner, is the focus of this classic of English literature, written with incisive wit and superb character delineation. Pride and Prejudice was well received by critics and readers when it was first published. The novel begins with one of English literature's most famous lines: "It is a universally acknowledged truth that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Mrs. Bennet appears to be thinking this as she sets her sights on the newly arrived Bingley, who she believes will make a suitable husband for one of her daughters.