Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the best-selling and most continuously reprinted novels in the English language since Jane Austen published it in 1813 under the anonymous byline 'A Lady,' having accepted just £110 for the copyright; the first print run of 1,500 copies sold out within six months. Its opening line is among the most quoted and parodied first sentences in the English literary canon, and Elizabeth Bennet is routinely cited as one of fiction's most beloved heroines. Austen built all of this from the domestic sphere alone — transforming the drawing room into an arena of moral precision with dramatic intensity that rivals any battlefield novel.