{"id":"01KJRRE0KZ7KGHF4TZ7VBCD5K3","cid":"bafkreifs5bc2uza3a4b7dlosofcva3eo7zy47lgtcw2u7ihp3slrcqt5eu","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":7930,"char_start":0,"chunk_index":0,"chunk_total":108,"estimated_tokens":1983,"label":"The Project Gutenberg eBook of Pride and Prejudic","source_file_key":"pride-and-prejudice","text":"The Project Gutenberg eBook of Pride and Prejudice\r\n    \r\nThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and\r\nmost other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions\r\nwhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms\r\nof the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online\r\nat www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,\r\nyou will have to check the laws of the country where you are located\r\nbefore using this eBook.\r\n\r\nTitle: Pride and Prejudice\r\n\r\nAuthor: Jane Austen\r\n\r\nRelease date: June 1, 1998 [eBook #1342]\r\n                Most recently updated: September 22, 2025\r\n\r\nLanguage: English\r\n\r\nCredits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive)\r\n\r\n\r\n*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIDE AND PREJUDICE ***\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n                            [Illustration:\r\n\r\n                             GEORGE ALLEN\r\n                               PUBLISHER\r\n\r\n                        156 CHARING CROSS ROAD\r\n                                LONDON\r\n\r\n                             RUSKIN HOUSE\r\n                                   ]\r\n\r\n                            [Illustration:\r\n\r\n               _Reading Jane’s Letters._      _Chap 34._\r\n                                   ]\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n                                PRIDE.\r\n                                  and\r\n                               PREJUDICE\r\n\r\n                                  by\r\n                             Jane Austen,\r\n\r\n                           with a Preface by\r\n                           George Saintsbury\r\n                                  and\r\n                           Illustrations by\r\n                             Hugh Thomson\r\n\r\n                         [Illustration: 1894]\r\n\r\n                       Ruskin       156. Charing\r\n                       House.        Cross Road.\r\n\r\n                                London\r\n                             George Allen.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n             CHISWICK PRESS:--CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.\r\n                  TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n                            [Illustration:\r\n\r\n                          _To J. Comyns Carr\r\n                      in acknowledgment of all I\r\n                       owe to his friendship and\r\n                    advice, these illustrations are\r\n                         gratefully inscribed_\r\n\r\n                            _Hugh Thomson_\r\n                                   ]\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nPREFACE.\r\n\r\n[Illustration]\r\n\r\n\r\n_Walt Whitman has somewhere a fine and just distinction between “loving\r\nby allowance” and “loving with personal love.” This distinction applies\r\nto books as well as to men and women; and in the case of the not very\r\nnumerous authors who are the objects of the personal affection, it\r\nbrings a curious consequence with it. There is much more difference as\r\nto their best work than in the case of those others who are loved “by\r\nallowance” by convention, and because it is felt to be the right and\r\nproper thing to love them. And in the sect--fairly large and yet\r\nunusually choice--of Austenians or Janites, there would probably be\r\nfound partisans of the claim to primacy of almost every one of the\r\nnovels. To some the delightful freshness and humour of_ Northanger\r\nAbbey, _its completeness, finish, and_ entrain, _obscure the undoubted\r\ncritical facts that its scale is small, and its scheme, after all, that\r\nof burlesque or parody, a kind in which the first rank is reached with\r\ndifficulty._ Persuasion, _relatively faint in tone, and not enthralling\r\nin interest, has devotees who exalt above all the others its exquisite\r\ndelicacy and keeping. The catastrophe of_ Mansfield Park _is admittedly\r\ntheatrical, the hero and heroine are insipid, and the author has almost\r\nwickedly destroyed all romantic interest by expressly admitting that\r\nEdmund only took Fanny because Mary shocked him, and that Fanny might\r\nvery likely have taken Crawford if he had been a little more assiduous;\r\nyet the matchless rehearsal-scenes and the characters of Mrs. Norris and\r\nothers have secured, I believe, a considerable party for it._ Sense and\r\nSensibility _has perhaps the fewest out-and-out admirers; but it does\r\nnot want them._\r\n\r\n_I suppose, however, that the majority of at least competent votes\r\nwould, all things considered, be divided between_ Emma _and the present\r\nbook; and perhaps the vulgar verdict (if indeed a fondness for Miss\r\nAusten be not of itself a patent of exemption from any possible charge\r\nof vulgarity) would go for_ Emma. _It is the larger, the more varied, the\r\nmore popular; the author had by the time of its composition seen rather\r\nmore of the world, and had improved her general, though not her most\r\npeculiar and characteristic dialogue; such figures as Miss Bates, as the\r\nEltons, cannot but unite the suffrages of everybody. On the other hand,\r\nI, for my part, declare for_ Pride and Prejudice _unhesitatingly. It\r\nseems to me the most perfect, the most characteristic, the most\r\neminently quintessential of its author’s works; and for this contention\r\nin such narrow space as is permitted to me, I propose here to show\r\ncause._\r\n\r\n_In the first place, the book (it may be barely necessary to remind the\r\nreader) was in its first shape written very early, somewhere about 1796,\r\nwhen Miss Austen was barely twenty-one; though it was revised and\r\nfinished at Chawton some fifteen years later, and was not published till\r\n1813, only four years before her death. I do not know whether, in this\r\ncombination of the fresh and vigorous projection of youth, and the\r\ncritical revision of middle life, there may be traced the distinct\r\nsuperiority in point of construction, which, as it seems to me, it\r\npossesses over all the others. The plot, though not elaborate, is almost\r\nregular enough for Fielding; hardly a character, hardly an incident\r\ncould be retrenched without loss to the story. The elopement of Lydia\r\nand Wickham is not, like that of Crawford and Mrs. Rushworth, a_ coup de\r\nthéâtre; _it connects itself in the strictest way with the course of the\r\nstory earlier, and brings about the denouement with complete propriety.\r\nAll the minor passages--the loves of Jane and Bingley, the advent of Mr.\r\nCollins, the visit to Hunsford, the Derbyshire tour--fit in after the\r\nsame unostentatious, but masterly fashion. There is no attempt at the\r\nhide-and-seek, in-and-out business, which in the transactions between\r\nFrank Churchill and Jane Fairfax contributes no doubt a good deal to the\r\nintrigue of_ Emma, _but contributes it in a fashion which I do not think\r\nthe best feature of that otherwise admirable book. Although Miss Austen\r\nalways liked something of the misunderstanding kind, which afforded her\r\nopportunities for the display of the peculiar and incomparable talent to\r\nbe noticed presently, she has been satisfied here with the perfectly\r\nnatural occasions provided by the false account of Darcy’s conduct given\r\nby Wickham, and by the awkwardness (arising with equal naturalness) from\r\nthe gradual transformation of Elizabeth’s own feelings from positive\r\naversion to actual love. I do not know whether the all-grasping hand of\r\nthe playwright has ever been laid upon_ Pride and Prejudice; _and I dare\r\nsay that, if it were, the situations would prove not startling or\r\ngarish enough for the footlights, the character-scheme too subtle and\r\ndelicate for pit and gallery. But if the attempt were made, it would\r\ncertainly not be hampered by any of those loosenesses of construction,\r\nwhich, sometimes disguised by the conveniences of which the novelist can\r\navail himself, appear at once on the stage._\r\n\r\n_I think, however, though the thought will doubtless seem heretical to\r\nmore than one school of critics, that construction is not the highest\r\nmerit, the choicest gift, of the novelist."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJRRD3TNE5A6AKAVXSRFT9RC","peer_label":"pride-and-prejudice","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJRRC2C7K6XERRJES8143XGV","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJRREYRAPBAR593DJKHRVWY2","peer_label":"george allen","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"organization","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRREYSEG13SVHNKA2ZC2AA1","peer_label":"pride and prejudice","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"novel","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRREYSFW4PJDQD79XG9GFG8","peer_label":"jane austen","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRREYXXH6XS9A7X5ATGAGY5","peer_label":"project gutenberg","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"organization","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRREYRJ3HWYNT4DS152R3WD","peer_label":"george saintsbury","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRREZBD0ZD9K684WKVZVQVG","peer_label":"chiswick press","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"organization","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRREZPJTRYF7JEWBQSTQ0FW","peer_label":"persuasion","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"novel","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRREYXEFBFD43ESMSNXSM71","peer_label":"hugh thomson","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRREZD0JCEWXMQ9N0P1JDDG","peer_label":"j comyns carr","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRREZMKDXC1VJN6723Z1YF3","peer_label":"sense and sensibility","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"novel","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRREZYJQT0BT2JAK9EPZWQA","peer_label":"lydia bennet pride and prejudice character","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"fictional_character","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRREZX4751XVARC3RD40RPA","peer_label":"mansfield park","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"novel","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRREZDBBHY5Y4SKVYYQHGTB","peer_label":"northanger abbey","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"novel","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRRF022YF2130T8VQ7YQ5PQ","peer_label":"walt whitman","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRRF064YFHDGEDA74H07NW9","peer_label":"emma","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"novel","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRRF0J1YV089RE97PRNYMQ2","peer_label":"fitzwilliam darcy pride and prejudice character","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"fictional_character","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRRF06A4CVNX14YTKX9HQ4P","peer_label":"george wickham pride and prejudice character","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"fictional_character","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRRF0QCRS9CGEN7TQXY98ER","peer_label":"loving by allowance","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRRF0KWMM10FJT6SE0AK6EZ","peer_label":"elizabeth bennet pride and prejudice character","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"fictional_character","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}},{"peer":"01KJRRF0Q9009HZ9G9RSS81KD6","peer_label":"chawton","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"place","extracted_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:36.083Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-03T02:29:01.183Z","ts":"2026-03-03T02:29:37.231Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}