‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was published #onthisday in 1813. Here’s a wood-engraved illustration by Helen Binyon depicting Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy. http://ow.ly/XCX1S
Jane Austen was born in Hampshire, England 240 years ago on this day in 1775.
"It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her."
--from EMMA
Emma 的中譯本，我手頭上有三本。底下的引言，2本中國的，都採用"
The most perfect of Jane Austen’s perfect novels begins with twenty-one-year-old Emma Woodhouse comfortably dominating the social order in the village of Highbury, convinced that she has both the understanding and the right to manage other people’s lives–for their own good, of course. Her well-meant interfering centers on the aloof Jane Fairfax, the dangerously attractive Frank Churchill, the foolish if appealing Harriet Smith, and the ambitious young vicar Mr. Elton–and ends with her complacency shattered, her mind awakened to some of life’s more intractable dilemmas, and her happiness assured. Jane Austen’s comic imagination was so deft and beautifully fluent that she could use it to probe the deepest human ironies while setting before us a dazzling gallery of characters–some pretentious or ridiculous, some admirable and moving, all utterly true. READ an excerpt here:http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/6386/emma/9780679405818/
Jane Austen is one of the most widely read and revered authors of all time. Born on this day in 1775, the cult of "Janeism" has ensured her legacy
Celebrating the life and work of Jane Austen -- born in Steventon Rectory, Hampshire, England on this day in 1775.
"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment."
--from "Pride and Prejudice" (1813)
--from "Pride and Prejudice" (1813)
No novel in English has given more pleasure than Pride and Prejudice. 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. We are captivated not only by the novel’s romantic suspense but also by the fascinations of the world we visit in its 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. READ an excerpt here:http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/6400/pride-and-prejudice/
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Jane Austen died in Winchester, Hampshire, England on this day in 1817 (aged 41).
"She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequence of an unnatural beginning."
--from PERSUASION (1818)
--from PERSUASION (1818)
Of all Jane Austen’s great and delightful novels, Persuasion is widely regarded as the most moving. It is the story of a second chance. Anne Elliot, daughter of the snobbish, spendthrift Sir Walter Elliot, is a woman of quiet charm and deep feelings. When she was nineteen, she fell in love with–and was engaged to–a naval officer, the fearless and headstrong Captain Wentworth. But the young man had no fortune, and Anne allowed herself to be persuaded, against her profoundest instinct, to give him up.Now, at twenty-seven, and believing that she has lost her bloom, Anne is startled to learn that Captain Wentworth has returned to the neighborhood, a rich man and still unwed. Her never-diminished love is muffled by her pride. He seems cold and unforgiving. Even worse, he appears to be infatuated by the flighty and pretty Louisa Musgrove. What happens as Anne and Wentworth are thrown together in the social world of Bath–and as an eager new suitor appears for Anne–is touchingly and wittily told in a masterpiece that is also one of the most entrancing novels in the English language.