GEORGE ALLEN

Publisher

156 Charing Cross Road, London
Ruskin House

Picture: Reading Jane's Letters. Chapter 34.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

by Jane Austen

With a preface by George Saintsbury
Pictures by Hugh Thomson

Picture: 1894

Ruskin House, 156 Charing Cross Road, London
George Allen

Printed by Chiswick Press: Charles Whittingham and Co.
Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London.

Picture:

To J. Comyns Carr
With thanks for his friendship and help, these pictures are given with gratitude.
Hugh Thomson

PREFACE

A preface is a short piece at the front of a book. It tells you something before the story begins.

Walt Whitman once said there is a difference between "loving something because you're told to" and "loving something with your whole heart." This is true for books too, just like it is true for people. Some writers are loved with real, personal love. When that happens, people often disagree about which of that writer's works is the best one. This happens with Jane Austen. People who love her books — sometimes called "Janites" — argue about which of her novels is the best.

Some people love Northanger Abbey best. It is funny and fresh, but it is a smaller book, and it makes fun of other stories (this is called "parody"), which is a hard thing to do perfectly.

Some people love Persuasion. It is quieter, but very finely written.

Mansfield Park has an ending that feels a bit too dramatic, like a play. Its hero and heroine are a little dull. But it has wonderful funny scenes and characters, like Mrs. Norris, so some people love it best.

Sense and Sensibility has fewer super-fans, but people still enjoy it.

Most readers, though, probably choose between two books as the best: Emma and Pride and Prejudice. Many people would pick Emma. It is bigger, has more happening in it, and by the time Austen wrote it, she had seen more of the world. Characters like Miss Bates and the Eltons make everyone laugh.

But I choose Pride and Prejudice without any doubt. I think it is Jane Austen's most perfect book, and the one that shows her special talent the best. Let me explain why.

First, remember that Jane Austen wrote the first version of this book very early — around 1796, when she was only about twenty-one years old. She rewrote and finished it about fifteen years later at a place called Chawton. It was published in 1813, only four years before she died. Maybe this mix of youthful energy and older, wiser rewriting is why the story is built so well. Almost every character and every event matters to the plot. Nothing feels wasted.

For example, when Lydia runs away with Wickham (this is called an "elopement," when two people leave to get married secretly), it doesn't feel like a sudden surprise thrown in just for drama. It connects naturally to earlier parts of the story and leads smoothly to the ending. The smaller stories too — like Jane and Bingley falling in love, Mr. Collins arriving, the visit to Hunsford, and the trip to Derbyshire — all fit together neatly.

Jane Austen sometimes liked using misunderstandings in her stories. Here, the misunderstandings feel very natural: Wickham lies about Darcy's past, and Elizabeth slowly changes from disliking Darcy to loving him. Nothing feels forced.

I don't know if anyone has ever tried to turn Pride and Prejudice into a play. If they did, it might not have flashy enough scenes for a big stage audience, and the characters might be too clever and subtle for it. But if someone did try, at least the story's careful structure wouldn't cause any problems, the way loosely built stories sometimes do on stage.

Still, I don't think a well-built plot is the most important thing about a novel. It helps show off a writer's other talents, but a story with wonderful, funny, believable characters and lively conversations is far better than a perfectly plotted story with boring characters. Jane Austen built her plot well, but I love Pride and Prejudice mostly because of her amazing skill at creating funny, memorable characters — some of the best she ever wrote.

Jane Austen's humor is delicate and quiet. It reminds me of a writer named Addison more than any other humorous writer. Of course, they wrote about different times and topics. But both share certain qualities: gentleness, close attention to small details, and quiet humor instead of loud jokes. Both writers also enjoy poking fun at foolish people, in a polite but sharp way.

People often say Addison was "kind" and gentle, compared to rougher, wilder writers of his time. People say the same about Jane Austen compared to writers like Fielding or Smollett, who wrote wilder scenes. But really, both Addison and Austen enjoy — in a well-mannered way — making fun of foolish characters.

Some people call moments in her writing "cynical" — meaning they think she is too doubtful or harsh about people. For example, she gently makes fun of Mrs. Musgrove, a character who fools herself about her feelings for her son. But being cynical, in the true sense, just means noticing that people's reasons for doing things are often mixed up, and that things aren't always what they seem. If that's what cynical means, then anyone smart and observant about life is a little bit cynical — and so was Jane Austen. She may have even enjoyed, like her own character Mr. Bennet, carefully studying and gently making fun of foolish or unpleasant people in her books. I think she did enjoy this — and it made her a better writer, even if some might judge her personally for it.

A writer named Mr. Goldwin Smith once said that people have used every possible comparison to describe how perfect and detailed Jane Austen's writing is, even though she wrote about a small, narrow world. He compared her to a miniature painter — someone who paints very small, extremely detailed pictures. That's a fair comparison, as long as we think of great, detailed painters, not just simple ones. I'm not sure I'd call her world "narrow," though. Even if her world was small, it captured big and important things about people and life. She only wrote about what she truly understood — but that doesn't mean she couldn't have written about more, if she wanted to.