Introduction

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.' So opens the novel, with one of the most famous first lines in English literature. The Bennets, a gentry family, have five daughters and no son; by law their estate will pass to a distant cousin, so Mrs Bennet is set on marrying her daughters off. The rich bachelor Bingley takes a neighbouring house; his friend Darcy, richer still, seems proud and cold, and at a ball refuses to dance with Elizabeth, the clever and lively second daughter. Elizabeth is prejudiced against him from then on, and too readily believes another man's slanders. After a chain of misunderstandings, refusals, letters and surprises, each comes to see their own pride and prejudice, and they are united at last. With exquisite dialogue and gentle irony, Austen wrote a comedy of love that readers never tire of.