TLDR Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice

by Jane Austen

Mrs. Bennet wants her five daughters married because Longbourn is entailed to a cousin, Mr. Collins. Wealthy Bingley rents Netherfield and falls for Jane. His friend Darcy insults Elizabeth, then proposes at Hunsford anyway. She refuses. His letter exposes Wickham's lies. Lydia elopes with Wickham, and Darcy quietly pays to force a marriage. Lady Catherine de Bourgh storms in to forbid the match, which backfires. Bingley returns to Jane, Darcy asks again, and Elizabeth says yes.

• The book started as First Impressions. Austen drafted it in the late 1790s under that title. It only became Pride and Prejudice when it reached print in 1813, after she had revised it.
• Austen sold the whole thing outright. She sold the copyright to publisher Thomas Egerton for 110 pounds. After that, whatever the book earned went to him, not to her.
• Austen thought it was too light. In a 1813 letter to her sister Cassandra, she called her own novel 'rather too light & bright & sparkling' and wished for some serious relief.

• “Darcy dives into the lake at Pemberley.” Soak that shirt elsewhere. Darcy never swims in the novel. Elizabeth runs into him unexpectedly on the Pemberley grounds. The lake dive comes from the 1995 BBC adaptation.
• “They fell for each other at first sight.” Rewind to the ballroom. At the Meryton ball, Darcy calls Elizabeth 'tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me.' Her dislike starts right there, and his interest builds slowly.
• “Elizabeth inherits Longbourn from her father.” Check the legal fine print. The estate is entailed to Mr. Collins, a cousin, because Mr. Bennet has no son. That is why Mrs. Bennet panics, and why Collins proposes to Elizabeth first.

• If they say: “Isn't it just a rich guy romance?”
  You say: “Not quite. The plot runs on money. Longbourn is entailed, so Charlotte Lucas marries Mr. Collins for security, and Lydia's ruin only gets fixed because Darcy pays.”
• If they say: “Elizabeth only likes Darcy after seeing Pemberley.”
  You say: “I think the turn comes earlier. After she rejects him at Hunsford, his letter exposes Wickham's lies, and she realizes she has misjudged both men.”