Pride and Prejudice (Penguin Popular Classics)

We listen to a lot of these audiobooks on long drives and I think this one has to be our favourite. As die hard 'P&P' fans, it appears often in our car.

It's beautifully read by the lady who plays Aunt Gardner in the 1995 BBC TV version and she makes a superb job of it. Her reading is full of feeling without being in the least over the top. Although she doesn't do a lot of *very* different voices to the degree that some readers do, she's easy to listen to and easy to follow. Volume is steady so you can listen in the car without the voice disappearing, (as on some....), then blowing you off your seat when you turn it right up!!

I think everyone knows the story, so that needs next to no comment in itself. Of course, it's abridged in this version, but very carefully done so that you don't miss any of the key parts and none of the characters are dropped as so often happens in film and TV versions.

Also good for listening whilst doing housework, chilling out, sun-bathing, public transport. Enjoy!=)


The Greatest Novel Ever Written   March 13, 2003
Laura (St. Paul, MN)
14 out of 14 found this review helpful

Some books go beyond description. Pride and Prejudice is one of these books. I cannot praise its sparkling tone and well-rounded charectors enough. True, this is not a novel for the adventure-seeker, but rather for anyone who can revel in the beauty of language. Jane Austen captures in mere sentences what would take a less skilled authors chapters to convey.

Pride and Prejudice tells the story of a spirited young woman, Elizabeth Bennet, and her four sisters as they reach maturity. Yes, it is a novel about love and marriage, but nowhere else will you find a mother so obsessed with her daughter's marrying and so oblivious to her own absurdities. Nowhere else will you find a brilliant and likeable father who mocks his own wife and daughters in cheerful dissillusionment with the woman he married. I have never encountered clergyman with such self-import and self-abasement as Mr. Collins, ladies with such arogance and condescension as Lady Catherine, sisters with such pure and unabashed naivite as Jane Bennet, or friends with such practical and yet absurd priorities as Charlotte Lucas.

I find it hard to believe that I have written this much without once mentioning the hero, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the arogant, self-centered, brilliant heir to an estate in Derbyshire who is taught to see his own faults by Elizabeth. I cannot imagine reading this book without absolutely falling in love with this man, despite his faults and despite the fact that he doesn't actually exist.

And therein lies the magic of Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice is a novel whose charectors will stay with you for the rest of your life. I have read this novel many times, and yet each time I take up my beaten copy once again, I find new treasures in language, style, and charectorization. Although she brutally exposes her charectors's flaws, she never does so in a cruel manner. Reading the novel, you can tell that she loves every charector in spite of or perhaps because of the flaws that make them leap of the page and into you life.

True, I know many people who find her difficult to read because of her complex sentence structure and wide vocabulary. However, if you are willing to plunge in and devote the energy to understand and appreciate all the irony, wit and realism in her work, I think you will join me in saying this truly is the greatest book every written. I cannot pretend to have captured even a fragment of Jane Austen's brilliance in this review. The only way to understand the truth of what I'm saying is to take a copy of the novel, and read it yourself.


Top of the class   May 25, 2004
Blueberry2 (edinburgh)
28 out of 29 found this review helpful

I had the terrible misfortune to go to a school that insisted on making us read the most miserable old books for our English courses. For years afterwards I suffered under the assumption that anything labelled as a "classic" was certain to be grim and impenetrable, and I stuck to reading relatively modern novels.

I bless the day when I wrestled with my prejudice and picked up a friend's anthology of Austen's novels. I had heard plenty about Austen's "social observation" before. It's an unfortunate phrase, because it suggested to me that her writing would be interesting but a bit dry and academic. Not a bit of it.

All of the Austen novels I've read so far have been good, but Pride and Prejudice is head and shoulders above the rest and ranks as one of the most entertaining books I have ever read. The characters are fabulously drawn, from the odious Mr Collins and the vacuous Lydia to the blithe Mr Bingley and the truly heroic Lizzie Bennett. The book is wonderfully constructed, going through what seems to be fairly straightforward plot development before Mr Darcy's proposal puts the main protagonists through a second half full of suspense and heart-felt self-criticism. Austen's writing is clear, concise, full of acute observations and coloured with a wonderful sense of humour.

While the whole book is extremely satisfying, it is Lizzie who steals the show. Much has been made of Mr Darcy's sex appeal, but most red-blooded men would find hard to deny that Miss Bennett is a deeply fascinating and attractive woman. She is fabulous throughout, and the story is peppered with moments where she delivers some truly marvelous dialogue, not least her reaction to Mr Darcy's proposal and her interview with Lady Catherine (which almost had me cheering out loud on the train into work). Strong-willed, intelligent, good-looking and cool under pressure; what a woman.

A fabulous book. How I wish I had read it years ago.


The freshness and perfection of form are astonishing.   March 14, 2002
John Austin (Kangaroo Ground, Australia)
25 out of 26 found this review helpful

It is almost 200 years since "Pride and Prejudice" was first published. It ought to be the equivalent in literature of those faded, dried flowers that used to be found pressed between the pages of the old family bible. Instead it is redolent of freshly cut flowers still carrying a sprinkling of morning dew.

The freshness and the perfection of form are certainly astonishing. Jane Austin is as good as story teller as ever picked up a pen, knowing exactly how to construct plots, and what incidents and dialogues to detail in full and what to briefly summarize. Her "world" is small but intricately constructed. Every characteristic, quality and idea has a precise and fixed value, all being ranked strictly and sternly according to decorum, logic and morality.

Despite its architectural perfection, however, a recent re-reading reveals one or two construction features that are questionable. How could it be, for example that Fitzwilliam Darcy could have such a dragon for an aunt? I also wonder about the friendship between Darcy and Bingley. How did it begin? It is obviously important to each, but we are given nothing of its history.

Jane Austen lived long enough to see this book published and enjoyed amongst her own family and a small readership. Her mother entertained family members with it, reading it, in Jane Austen's estimation, a little too quickly. Distinguished British actress Lindsay Duncan reads it with perfect timing and inflexion in this highly recommended audio tape format, which presents the novel in an unabridged version of just over twelve hours.


Define classic   October 15, 2001
11 out of 11 found this review helpful

This book is irresistable. Darcy set the standard for the male love interest. Moody, passionate - you know he's proud, but you just can't help it. And Lizzie, in the context of the time and Jane Austen's class, she's a throughly modern girl. Intelligent, strong-willed and opinionated - you know she's going to get THE man.I've read this book countless times and enjoyed it on so many levels. Pure romance; social commentary on a certain section of society in C18th; satire of the manners of a certain section of society; and the whole "my word that Lizzie Bennett is a very HEALTHY" - nudge, nudge, wink, wink - "girl. Walking all that way here, with her rosy cheeks, eh!"