When Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813, it did not directly identify her by name, instead referring to her as the author of an earlier work.
Marriage, property, and social judgment shape the novel's relationships. Its anonymous publication also reflects the publishing environment faced by women writers at the time.
Historical context
Pride and Prejudice is a novel by English author Jane Austen. Written when she was aged 20–21, it was her third novel written and became the second to see print when it was published in 1813. A novel of manners, it follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist of the book, who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness.
Her father, Mr Bennet—owner of the Longbourn estate in Hertfordshire—has five daughters; but this estate is entailed and so can only be inherited in the male line. To his regret, he has failed to save out of the income from the Longbourn estate to provide for his daughters. From the Bennets' perspective, it is imperative that at least one of their daughters marry well to support the others, which is a primary motivation driving the plot.
Major themes
A theme in much of Austen's work is the importance of environment and upbringing in developing young people's character and morality. Social standing and wealth are not necessarily advantages in her works, and a further theme common to Austen's work is ineffectual parents. In Pride and Prejudice, the failure of Mr and Mrs Bennet as parents is blamed for Lydia's lack of moral judgment. Darcy has been taught to be principled and scrupulously honourable, but he is also proud and overbearing. Kitty, rescued from Lydia's bad influence and spending more time with her older sisters after they marry, is said to improve greatly in their superior society.
Pride and Prejudice is also about that thing that all great novels consider, the search for self. And it is the first great novel that teaches us this search is as surely undertaken in the drawing room, making small talk as in the pursuit of a great white whale or the public punishment of adultery.
Publication history
Austen sold the copyright for the novel to Thomas Egerton from the Military Library, Whitehall in exchange for £110 (Austen had asked for £150). This proved a costly decision. Austen had published Sense and Sensibility on a commission basis, whereby she indemnified the publisher against any losses and received any profits, less costs and the publisher's commission. Unaware that Sense and Sensibility would sell out its edition, making her £140, she passed the copyright to Egerton for a one-off payment, meaning that all the risk (and all the profits) would be his. Jan Fergus has calculated that Egerton subsequently made around £450 from just the first two editions of the book.
Egerton published the first edition of Pride and Prejudice in three hardcover volumes on 28 January 1813. It was advertised in The Morning Chronicle, priced at 18s. Favourable reviews saw this edition sold out, with a second edition published in October that year. A third edition was published in 1817.
Foreign language translations first appeared in 1813 in French; subsequent translations were published in German, Danish, and Swedish. Pride and Prejudice was first published in the United States in August 1832 as Elizabeth Bennet or, Pride and Prejudice. The novel was also included in Richard Bentley's Standard Novel series in 1833. R. W. Chapman's scholarly edition of Pride and Prejudice, first published in 1923, has become the standard edition on which many modern published versions of the novel are based.
The novel was originally published anonymously, as were all of Austen's novels. However, whereas her first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, was presented as being written "by a Lady," Pride and Prejudice was attributed to "the Author of 'Sense and Sensibility. '" This began to consolidate a conception of Austen as an author, albeit anonymously. Her subsequent novels were similarly attributed to the anonymous author of all her then-published works.