Pride and Prejudice: 200th Anniversary Edition

This book is such a comfort read! While times have certainly moved on from the formalities of socially accepted manners, I can’t help but feel we’ve gone too far. Austen’s story is a reminder of a world where courtesy and decorum were valued, but where those same social rules could—and should—be challenged when they became unjust or disrespectful. The sharp divide between rich and poor, and the weight of social class, are on full display in this novel. Yet even these barriers cannot diminish the power of love. Elizabeth Bennet is an extraordinary woman for her time: educated, well read, respectful in conduct, yet never afraid to stand her ground when morality is at stake. Having watched both the series and the film adaptations before reading the book, I must say my feelings haven’t changed—Mrs. Bennet remains insufferable in every version, and Lydia is very much her mother’s daughter! Both are exasperating characters, yet they add depth and contrast to the story. And then, of course, there is Mr. Darcy. He needs no explanation. Swoon…

This is one of my all-time favourite books and I recently re-read it to see whether its magic could still enchant. I was not disappointed. The story is as riveting and satisfying as it ever was, two love stories, mingled with a witty and satirical depiction of society's norms as they were in Jane Austen's day. The story is well known, a delightful take on a familiar theme - girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl and boy get back together again. But in this case there are two `girl meets boy' stories, those of the only two sisters with, in their father's estimation, any sense. The pride is Elizabeth Bennet's, the prejudice Mr Darcy's. Good-looking but haughty, he is seemingly disdainful of any class below his own and determined not to demean himself by dancing with Elizabeth, or any other young lady of her class, no matter how captivating she might be. Jane Austen's characterisation is superb. The five Bennet sisters are so different from each other and so real: Jane, the eldest, pretty and full of goodness, seeing only the best in everyone; Elizabeth, sensible and feisty; Kitty, the sister we know least; Lydia, frothy and fluffy-headed, who brings shame and almost ruin to her family; and staid, disapproving Mary, who has no idea that she is so dull and tedious. Mrs Bennet's sole ambition is to avoid the ignominy of seeing any of her daughters unmarried, to the point where it seems any potential husband will do. Their father is a quite, sensible, man, eminently likeable, unlike the repulsive Mr Collins, a cousin with claims to their property. These are just a few of the many characters who, between them, make this such a delightful read. It is at times funny, at times serious. I have seen it described as the perfect novel and in many ways it is - a thoroughly rounded, satisfying whole.

Very good book with correct kindle price.

I have `known' Pride and Prejudice for a long time both through the BBC series and the more recent Keira Knightly film, and that's without mentioning all the modernisations (like Bridget Jones' Diary), so I have been meaning to actually read it for a long time. Why have I never read it before? Well I don't tend to have the best of experiences with classics, I gave up on my last one, Vanity Fair. The Hunchback of NotreDame got thrown across the room. I struggled through Rachel Ray, and regretted not giving u. I only liked Jane Eyre in retrospect and was never that into Wuthering Heights. In fact pretty much the only classic I have enjoyed (that wasn't written for children) was my first Austen, Northanger Abbey. Not long afterwards in the hope I had found a classic writer I actually enjoyed I started Emma, but on reading a little decided I wasn't really in the right mood, so I left the classics until now. So was Northanger Abbey just a flux? I was a bit worried it would be as it's known as the `different' Austen novel. Certainly it is very different from Pride and Prejudice but still I liked this at least as much. Just as with Northanger Abbey I found that I was laughing a lot more than I had expected. I loved Lizzy. She comes across so much smarter and wittier, and even more caring than she does in either filmed adaptation and while I had liked Lizzy in both (probably more in the BBC version) I got to know her in the same way the book allowed me to (certainly that is probably something that is generally easier to do on the page than on film, but that's a discussion for another time I think.). Generally I knew what to expect from the book, in some ways it made it easier to read because in areas when I felt the book was getting a little slow I knew it couldn't be long until a bit I knew. In other ways though it made it harder to read, because I was eager for those bits. Luckily it has been a while since I had watched Pride and Prejudice so while I wasn't exactly surprised by events it did occasionally take reading about them to remind me. The one thing I really expected though was for the novel to be told from Lizzy's point of view and actually that wasn't so. Certainly you saw much into Lizzy's mind, and that's part of the reason that she was such a well constructed character, but you also see a fair bit into Darcy's mind and to a lesser extend the rest of the Bennett family. Really that was what made the novel for me. Yes, the story is great, but has inspired so many stories that it has become predictable. However the was the characters were written so you could almost be another member of the Bennett family was what made it special.

It's a classic. After watching the movie, I decided to read the book and I liked it very much. I couldn't stop reading.

Très beau comme sur la photo.

One of the classics and only bought it because I like the embossed hardback cover!

El libro es pequeño, pero cómodo para llevar en bolso, es preciosa la edicion, los detalles, la letra pequeña pero se lee bien. Se ve de excelente calidad el libro. El único detalle y que no me gustó es la elección de papel, es muy blanco y con el contraste de las letras, llega a ser un tanto molesto, a diferencia de otros tipos de papel. Aún así recomiendo mucho esta colección de clásicos.

Livraison rapide et livre intact, c'est parfait !