Visual Library Catalogue: Pride and Prejudice

I bought this one in Campbeltown, but I’ve had various copies of Pride and Prejudice for most of my life. It’s a book that sticks to its aficionados. Do I need to extol the glories of Pride and Prejudice? No. To those who present a tin ear to Jane Austen’s prose, I will say in her own words: One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.

This is the Penguin Classics edition, essential because it preserves Austen’s idiosyncratic way with words like anybody, anyone, or somebody. She sensibly splits them into two words (some body), thus giving full weight to the yoked concepts of the general and particular they embody. More than that, I can imagine her saying them with that slight pause between the words.

It’s no accident that Amanda Price, the discerning heroine of Lost in Austen, reads the Penguin Classics version. Click on the link for all the episodes of that splendid adaptation.