Pride and Prejudice

JANE AUSTEN (1775-1817) born in Steventon, Hampshire, was the sixth child in a family of seven. Her father, the Revd. George Austen, was a cultivated man who taught Jane and encouraged her both in her reading and her writing. “Pride and Prejudice”, published 1813, was originally a youthful work entitled “First Impressions” and was refused by Cadell, a London publisher, in 1797. Mr and Mrs Bennet live with their five daughters at Longbourn in Hertfordshire. In the absence of a male heir, the property is due to pass to a cousin, William Collins. Through the patronage of the haughty Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Collins has been presented with a living near Rosings, the Kentish seat of Lady Catherine. Charles Bingley, a rich young bachelor, takes Netherfield, a house near Longbourn, bringing with him his two sisters and his friend Fitzwilliam Darcy, nephew of Lady Catherine. Bingley and Jane, the eldest of the Bennet girls, very soon fail in love.