Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen published her second novel in 1813 under the anonymous byline "A Lady," having been paid £110 for the copyright. It sold out its first print run of 1,500 copies in six months. Over 200 years later it sells over three million copies per year globally and has never been out of print. Its opening sentence — "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife" — is the most parodied and quoted first line in the English literary canon. Elizabeth Bennet is widely voted the most beloved heroine in fiction.