Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

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Résumé :
Pride and Prejudice, one of the most famous love stories of all time, has also proven itself as a treasured mainstay of the English literary canon. With the arrival of eligible young men in their neighbourhood, the lives of Mr and Mrs Bennet and their five daughters are turned inside out and upside down. Pride encounters prejudice, upward mobility confronts social disdain, and quick-wittedness challenges sagacity. Misconceptions and hasty judgements bring heartache and scandai, but eventually lead to true understanding, self-knowledge, and love. It's almost impossible to open Pride and Prejudice without feeling the pressure of so many readers having known and loved this novel already. Will you fail the test?or will you love it too ? As a story that celebrates more unflinchingly than any of Austen's other novels the happy meeting-of-true-minds, and one that has attracted the most fans over the centuries, Pride and Prejudice sets up an echo chamber of good feelings in which romantic love and the love of reading amplify each other.

Biographie:
Jane Austen was born in 1775 in the village of Steventon, Hampshire, the daughter of an Anglican clergyman. The Austens were cultured but not at all rich, though one of Austen's brothers was adopted by a wealthy relative. Other brothers followed professional careers in the church, the Navy, and banking. With the exception of two brief periods away at school,Austen and her elder sister Cassandra, her closest friend and confidante, were educated at home. Austen's earliest surviving work, written at Steventon while still in her teens, is dedicated to her family and close female friends. Between 18oi and 1809 Austen lived in Bath, where her father died in 1805, and in Southampton. In 1809, she moved with her mother, Cassandra, and their great friend Martha Lloyd to Chawton, Hampshire, her home until her death at Winchester in 1817. During this time, Austen published four of her major novels : Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1816), visiting London regularly to oversee their publication. Her two final novels, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey, were published posthumously in 1818. Sanditon, a new novel, was left unfinished at the time of her death. James Kinsley was Professor of English Studies at the University of Nottingham until his death in 1984. He was General Editor of the Oxford English Novels series and edited The Oxford Book of Ballads. Christina Lupton is Professor of Literary and Cultural Theory at the University of Copenhagen. She is the author of Reading and the Making of Time in the Eighteenth Century, Knowing Books : The Consciousness of Mediation in Eighteenth-Century Britain, and co-editor of Literature and Contingency with Carsten Meiner.

Sommaire:
Introduction; Note on the Text; Select Bibliography; A Chronology of Jane Austen; Pride and Prejudice; Volume I; Volume II; Volume III; Explanatory Notes