{"product_id":"pride-and-prejudice-introduction-by-peter-conrad-9780679405429","title":"Pride and Prejudice: Introduction by Peter Conrad","description":"\u003cb\u003eA beautiful, display-worthy collector's hardcover of one of the most beloved novels ever written, Jane Austen's \u003ci\u003ePride and Prejudice\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eNo novel in English has given more pleasure than \u003ci\u003ePride and Prejudice\u003c\/i\u003e. Because it is one of the great works in our literature, critics in every generation reexamine and reinterpret it. But the rest of us simply fall in love with it--and with its wonderfully charming and intelligent heroine, Elizabeth Bennet. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003ePride and Prejudice\u003c\/i\u003e captivates us not only with its romantic suspense but also by the fascinations of the world we visit in the novel's pages. The life of the English country gentry at the turn of the nineteenth century is made as real to us as our own, not only by Jane Austen's wit and feeling but by her subtle observation of the way people behave in society and how we are true or treacherous to each other and ourselves. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Jane Austen remains the most misunderstood of great English writers.... Austen's is an extended, exploratory, dangerously subversive art, and is neither harmlessly decorative nor picturesquely provincial.... [Irony] is the secret of the perfect self-sufficiency of \u003ci\u003ePride and Prejudice\u003c\/i\u003e.\"--from the Introduction by Peter Conrad \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEveryman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Everyman's Library Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThough the domain of Jane Austen's novels was as circumscribed as her life, her caustic wit and keen observation made her the equal of the greatest novelists in any language. Born the seventh child of the rector of Steventon, Hampshire, on December 16, 1775, she was educated mainly at home. At an early age she began writing sketches and satires of popular novels for her family's entertainment. As a clergyman's daughter from a well-connected family, she had an ample opportunity to study the habits of the middle class, the gentry, and the aristocracy. At twenty-one, she began a novel called \"The First Impressions\" an early version of \u003cb\u003ePride and Prejudice\u003c\/b\u003e. In 1801, on her father's retirement, the family moved to the fashionable resort of Bath. Two years later she sold the first version of \u003cb\u003eNorthanger Abby\u003c\/b\u003e to a London publisher, but the first of her novels to appear was \u003cb\u003eSense and Sensibility\u003c\/b\u003e, published at her own expense in 1811. It was followed by \u003cb\u003ePride and Prejudice \u003c\/b\u003e(1813), \u003cb\u003eMansfield Park \u003c\/b\u003e(1814), and \u003cb\u003eEmma \u003c\/b\u003e(1815). \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e After her father died in 1805, the family first moved to Southampton then to Chawton Cottage in Hampshire. Despite this relative retirement, Jane Austen was still in touch with a wider world, mainly through her brothers; one had become a very rich country gentleman, another a London banker, and two were naval officers. Though her many novels were published anonymously, she had many early and devoted readers, among them the Prince Regent and Sir Walter Scott. In 1816, in declining health, Austen wrote \u003cb\u003ePersuasion \u003c\/b\u003eand revised \u003cb\u003eNorthanger Abby\u003c\/b\u003e, Her last work, \u003ci\u003eSandition\u003c\/i\u003e, was left unfinished at her death on July 18, 1817. She was buried in Winchester Cathedral. Austen's identity as an author was announced to the world posthumously by her brother Henry, who supervised the publication of \u003cb\u003eNorthanger Abby\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003ePersuasion\u003c\/b\u003e in 1818.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Everyman's Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50407592526098,"sku":"9780679405429","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_3ff2a57f-0f06-4f1c-a7e8-7def083ca428.jpg?v=1774449138","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/pride-and-prejudice-introduction-by-peter-conrad-9780679405429","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}