Pride and Prejudice
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story charts the emotional development of the protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet, who learns the error of making hasty judgements and comes to appreciate the difference between the superficial and the essential. The comedy of the writing lies in the depiction of manners, education, and marriage and money in the British Regency. Mr Bennet of the Longbourn estate has five daughters, but his property is entailed, meaning that none of the girls can inherit it. Since his wife had no fortune, it is imperative that one of the girls marries well in order to support the others on his death. However, 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 playfulness. The novel revolves around the necessity of marrying for love, not simply for mercenary reasons despite the social pressures to make a good (i.e. wealthy) match. Pride and Prejudice retains the fascination of modern readers, consistently appearing near the top of lists of "most-loved books" among both literary scholars and the general public. It has become one of the most popular novels in English literature, with over 20 million copies sold, and paved the way for many archetypes that abound in modern literature. Continuing interest in the book has resulted in a number of dramatic adaptations and an abundance of novels and stories imitating Austen's memorable characters or themes.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Collagist Fabe adds flair to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with 39 original illustrations that accompany the unabridged text. Fabe's collages overlay bright, watercolor-washed scenes with retro cut-paper figures and objects sampled from fashion magazines from the 1930s to the '50s. Accompanying each tableau is a quote from the Pride and Prejudice passage that inspired it. Like Austen's book, Fabe's work explores arcane customs of beauty and courtship, pageantry and social artifice: in one collage, a housewife holds a tray of drinks while a man sits happily with a sandwich in hand in the distance. While tinged with irony and more than a dash of social commentary, the collages nevertheless have a spirit of glee and evidence deep reverence for the novel. As Fabe describes in a preface, Austen "was a little bit mean the way real people are mean so there are both heroes and nincompoops. Family is both beloved and annoying. That is Austen's genius, her ability to describe people in all their frailty and humor." This is a sweet and visually appealing homage. (BookLife)
