Pride and Prejudice, one of the world’s most popular novels, quickly establishes itself as a charming satire with its hilarious opening line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Anthony Trollope once said of Jane Austen, “What she did, she did perfectly.” Today Austen is regarded as the first modern novelist. Pride and Prejudice—Austen’s own “darling child”—tells the story of fiercely independent Elizabeth Bennet, one of five sisters who must marry rich, as she confounds the arrogant, wealthy Mr. Darcy. What ensues is one of the most delightful and engrossingly readable courtships known to literature, replete with finely drawn depictions of country manners, high society and high comedy, and, ultimately, the economy-driven march toward marriage. Written by a precocious Austen when she was just twenty-one years old, and filled with scintillating dialogue, Pride and Prejudice is, in the words of Eudora Welty, as “irresistible and as nearly flawless as any fiction could be.” Introduction and Notes by Carol Howard “In Pride and Prejudice especially, Austen appeals to modern readers’ nostalgia for a world of social, moral, and economic stability, but one where characters are free to make their own choices and pursue their hearts’ desires. The formal civility, the carefully prescribed manners, and sexual and social restraint, set against a backdrop of village community, stately manor houses, and an English landscape devoid of industrial turmoil and the brisk pace of modern technology—these are a welcome escape for today’s reader.” —from the Introduction by Carol Howard Chair of the English Department at Warren Wilson College, Carol Howard has published essays on early British and contemporary African-American women writers and has co-edited two books on British writers. Her current book project traces the tension between the desire for freedom and for stability in British women’s writings about slavery and empire, from 1688 to 1805. She was educated at SUNY Purchase and Columbia University, where she received her Ph.D. in 1999. She now lives in Black Mountain, North Carolina, with her husband and two daughters. Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, the seventh of eight children. An avid reader from earliest childhood, Jane began writing at age twelve, no doubt encouraged by her cultured and affectionate family. Indeed, family and writing were her great loves; despite a fleeting engagement in 1802, Austen never married. Productive and discreet, she insisted that her work be kept secret from anyone outside the family. All of her novels were published anonymously, including the posthumous release, thanks to her brother Henry, of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.