Book Clubbing: Pride & Prejudice, a Singular Novel in Want of a Re-read

Thinking about reading Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice for your book club. Please do! If you have never read it or remember the novel from high school or college days, it’s a wondrous pleasure to revisit. To mangle the opening line:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a singular novel in possession of a good reputation must be in want of re-read.

And to increase your reading pleasure, here are things to explore as you dip into Regency England – the time and place where Elizabeth Bennet, and her four sisters, Jane, Mary, Lydia, and Kitty live, love, dance, flirt, and go about the very serious business of finding a husband.

Pride and Prejudice : An Annotated Edition

Give yourself some extra time to read the annotated edition of the novel. Chock full of photos and images of scenes from Jane Austen’s era: her homes, places she visited, 18th century paintings, Austen’s portable writing desk, and more. There are notes on all the language and customs that perhaps we no longer understand the implications of. Did you know that “cassino” is a card game placed by 2 to 4 persons where one accumulates points by card combinations; “draughts"are doses of medicine; and a “phaeton” is a light carriage usually drawn by two horses. Finally, it is a very large faux-pas for a lower rank person to introduce

himself/herself to a higher rank person. A Duke must ask to be introduced to a commoner --- never vice-versa! Armed with this knowledge, you more fully grasp the intricacies of the social world inhabited by Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet.

Watch the Films

There have been a number of television productions and movie films of Pride and Prejudice. From the library’s collection, you can compare several versions of Darcy: Laurence Olivier, Colin Firth, and Matthew Macfadyen. Have a favorite? While Elizabeth has been played by Greer

Garson, Keira Knightley, and Jennifer Ehle. My personal rave is for Mary Boland as Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth’s addled, desperate, and very wacky mother, in the 1940 movie starring Garson and Olivier. Desperate to find husbands and homes for the five daughters the 1940 dialog includes such gems as:

Mrs. Bennet: Look at them! Five of them without dowries. What's to become of them?

Mr. Bennet: Yes, what's to become of the wretched creatures. Perhaps we should have drowned some of them at birth.

Join JASNA: the Jane Austen Society of North America

Can’t get enough of Jane through her novels – then check out the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA), a “nonprofit organization staffed by volunteers, with approximately 4,000 members and more than 65 regional groups in the United States and Canada. Its members, who are of all ages and from diverse walks of life, share an enjoyment of

Austen’s fiction and the company of like-minded readers.” Pleasures of joining include a subscription to the society’s newsletter, JASNA News; Persuasions - JASNA’s annual journal, a preeminent source for Austen studies; an invitation to the Austen General Meeting, a three-day conference with an Austen theme held annually with speakers, entertainment, tours, banquet, and Regency ball. There are more than 60 JASNA regional groups in the United States and Canada which arrange lectures, book discussions, teas, and a celebrate Austen’s birthday, December 16. I’m seriously considering it!

Janeites in Want of Sequels

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of

more brains” – Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

There are so many sequels, knockoffs and spinoffs of Jane Austen novels, particularly Pride and Prejudice, that the genre has its own moniker: Jane Austen Fan Fiction ( “fanfic”) and the followers of all things Jane, are Janeites.

Reliable sources claim that there are over 100 such novels. Some feature the characters of Austen’s novels, some are about the author herself. Check out

the largest sites of commentary and discussions of

Austen and fanfic at Austen.com and the Republic of Pemberley – both sites are noncommercial and in love with all things Austenite. Pemberley, btw, is the name of Darcy’s fictional estate in Derbyshire.

Some sequels to stab at: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith, where zombies battle Bennets – a best seller of course! Or in a more serious vein, The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen by Syrie James. The Memoirs was also an international bestseller and declared by Library Journal to be a Best First Novel in 2008.

Ready to channel your inner Jane?

- Karen S.