Read Pride and Prejudice Online
Authors: Jane Austen,Vivien Jones,Tony Tanner
Tags: #Classics, #Fiction
Pride and Prejudice
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
JANE AUSTEN
was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon, near Basingstoke, the seventh child of the rector of the parish. She lived with her family at Steventon until they moved to Bath when her father retired in 1801. After his death in 1805, she moved around with her mother; in 1809, they settled in Chawton, near Alton, Hampshire. Here she remained, except for a few visits to London, until in May 1817 she moved to Winchester to be near her doctor. There she died on 18 July 1817.
Jane Austen was extremely modest about her own genius, describing her work to her nephew, Edward, as ‘the little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory, on which I work with so fine a Brush, as produces little effect after much labour’. As a girl she wrote stories, including burlesques of popular romances. Her works were published only after much revision, four novels being published in her lifetime. These are
Sense and Sensibility
(1811),
Pride and Prejudice
(1813),
Mansfield Park
(1814) and
Emma
(1815). Two other novels,
Northanger Abbey
and
Persuasion
, were published posthumously in 1817 with a biographical notice by her brother, Henry Austen, the first formal announcement of her authorship.
Persuasion
was written in a race against failing health in 1815–16. She also left two earlier compositions, a short epistolary novel,
Lady Susan
, and an unfinished novel,
The Watsons
. At the time of her death, she was working on a new novel,
Sanditon
, a fragmentary draft of which survives.
VIVIEN JONES
is a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Leeds. She has published books on Henry James and Jane Austen, and her publications on gender and writing in the eighteenth century include
Women in the Eighteenth Century
:
Constructions of Femininity
(1990) and
Women and Literature in Britain 1700
–
1800
(2000), as well as numerous articles. She has edited Frances Burney’s
Evelina
for Oxford World’s Classics.
CLAIRE LAMONT
is Textual Adviser for the works of Jane Austen in Penguin Classics.
TONY TANNER
was a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and Professor of English and American Literature at the University of Cambridge. He taught and travelled extensively in America and Europe. Among his many books are
The Reign of Wonder
(1965);
City of Words
(1970);
Contract and Transgression
:
Adultery and the Novel
(1980);
Jane Austen
(1986);
Scenes of Nature, Signs of Men
(1987);
Venice Desired
(1992);
Henry James and the Art of Non-Fiction
(1995); and
The American Mystery
(2000). Tony Tanner died in December 1998.
JANE AUSTEN
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by
VIVIEN JONES
With the original Penguin Classics Introduction by
TONY TANNER
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published 1813
Published in Penguin Classics 1996
This edition reissued with new Chronology, updated Further Reading
and 1972 Penguin Classics Introduction by Tony Tanner 2003
6
Introduction and Notes copyright © Vivien Jones, 1996, 2003
Textual Adviser’s Note and Chronology copyright © Claire Lamont, 1995, 2003
Appendix: Original Penguin Classics Introduction copyright © Tony Tanner, 1972
All rights reserved
The moral right of the editors has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
EISBEN: 978–0–141–90721–5
The Penguin Edition of the Novels of Jane Austen
Appendix: Original Penguin Classics Introduction by Tony Tanner
I want to thank John Barnard, Paul Hammond, Rick Jones, Angela Keane, David Lindley, Oliver Pickering, Susan Spearey, Andrew Wawn and John Whale for their help in preparing this edition. It was completed during study leave funded by the Humanities Research Board of the British Academy, and I am grateful for research time, both to them and to the School of English, University of Leeds.
Vivien Jones
June 1995
The texts of Austen’s novels in the Penguin Edition are based on the first editions and have been edited afresh. The texts of four of the novels are necessarily based on the first edition: in the case of
Pride and Prejudice
Austen sold the copyright to the publisher of the first edition and was not involved with the preparation of the two further editions in her lifetime;
Emma
did not reach a second edition in Britain in Austen’s lifetime; and
Northanger Abbey
and
Persuasion
were published posthumously.
Sense and Sensibility
and
Mansfield Park
, however, both appeared in second editions in which Austen took some part. Hitherto all reprints of these novels have been based on the second editions. The Penguin Edition returns to the first-edition texts of both novels, and includes a list of the substantive variants between the two editions so that readers can see clearly for the first time the alterations made between the first and second editions.
The editors have worked from copies of the first editions kindly supplied by the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The editorial policy is one of minimum intervention: no attempt has been made to modernize spelling or punctuation, or to render spellings consistent so long as the variant spellings were acceptable in the period. Where any of these might cause difficulty to the modern reader the editor has offered help and explanation in a note.
The editors have emended the text in the following circumstances: errors in spelling and punctuation have been corrected. Where, after all allowance has been made for historical usage, the text seems faulty the editors have cautiously emended it.
They have been assisted by the fact that there is a tradition of Austen scholarship. The first edition of Austen’s novels to examine the texts thoroughly was
The Novels of Jane Austen
, edited by R. W. Chapman, 5 vols (Clarendon, 1923). This pioneering edition was itself revised in later reprints, and all recent editions have been either based on Chapman’s text or acknowledge debts to it. The editors of the Penguin Edition have edited Austen’s texts anew from the first editions, but in making decisions about obscurities and cruxes they have borne in mind the work of previous commentators on the Austen texts. The greatest of these is R. W. Chapman, but there have been others, including critics and general readers who have from time to time queried passages in Austen’s texts and suggested emendations. Where the Penguin editors are indebted to a previous scholar for a particular emendation they acknowledge it, and where a crux has provoked controversy they indicate it in a brief note. All corrections to the text other than any which are purely typographical are recorded in the ‘Emendations to the Text’.
Austen’s novels originally appeared in three volumes (with the exception of
Northanger Abbey
and
Persuasion
, which appeared together in four volumes). To make the original volume arrangements visible in a one-volume format the Penguin Edition has headlines at the top of each page so that in any opening the headline on the left will give the volume and chapter number in the first edition and the headline on the right will give the chapter number in a continuously numbered sequence.
The bibliographical basis of the Penguin Edition is David Gilson’s
Bibliography of Jane Austen
(Clarendon, 1982), to which the edition is happy to acknowledge its debt.
Claire Lamont
Textual Adviser
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
1775
Jane Austen born on 16 December, the second daughter and seventh child of the Revd George Austen and his wife, Cassandra Leigh. Her father was rector of the village of Steventon in Hampshire. The family was well-connected although not rich. Two of her brothers entered the navy and one of them rose to the rank of Admiral of the Fleet.
1776
American Declaration of Independence.
1778
Frances Burney published
Evelina
.
1785–6
Austen, with her sister Cassandra, attended the Abbey School, Reading.
1787
Austen started to write the short, parodic pieces of fiction known as her
Juvenilia
.
1789
French Revolution broke out.
1792
Mary Wollstonecraft published
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
.
1793
Britain at war with revolutionary France.
1794
Ann Radcliffe published
The Mysteries of Udolpho
.
1795
Austen wrote ‘Elinor and Marianne’, a first version of
Sense and Sensibility
.
1796
Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte in France.
1796–7
Austen wrote ‘First Impressions’, a first version of
Pride and Prejudice
.
1797
‘First Impressions’ offered to a publisher, who refused it.
1798–9
‘Susan’, an early version of
Northanger Abbey
, written.
1801
Austen’s father retired and the family moved to Bath.
1802
Austen accepted a proposal of marriage from Harris Bigg-Wither, but changed her mind the following day.
In France Napoleon appointed Consul for life.