Biography
Read about the key players in the birth of the novel, and how this most famous of books came to be written.
Pride And Prejudice: the Basics
Jane Austen's best-loved novel was first published in 1813. It tells the story of Elizabeth Bennet's troubled courtship with the initially arrogant but ultimately sympathetic Mr Darcy. The author herself worried that the book was a little too light and frothy, but its painstaking observations of the habits and preoccupations of polite Regency society has never lost its appeal.
The Early Novel
The English novel is a product of the early years of the 18th century. Prior to this time, stories were told either in dramatic form on the stage, or in the shape of long verse narratives, as they had been since ancient Greek times.
Writing Pride And Prejudice
Jane Austen had been a writer almost all her life. She began when she was 12 and completed her first novel, "Lady Susan", when she was just 19. Her writing was an intensely private activity, unknown to anyone outside her close social circle.
