BOOKS 47: Jane Austen'S PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

WITH WENDY A. LEE

Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice has delighted, moved and fortified millions of readers for over 200 years now.

I spoke with Professor Wendy Lee, who has written about Austen in Failures of Feeling: Insensibility and the Novel, and teaches a regular course on Austen at NYU, why Austen's six novels provide grounding for so many readers during periods of hardship, suffering, and pain.

Readers turn to Austen in times of war and crisis: what do they see? Do we consider Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy to be merely fictional characters or do they appear as real people to us? Where is Jane Austen's immense intelligence hiding in the world she creates in fiction? What does it mean for us to read Austen today, when we have moved so far from early 19th century England with its rules for women and men on who, how, and why to marry? What have the many film and other adaptations done for Austen's reception? Why is Austen peerless as a writer in world literature, and why does she appeal to so many readers who have no particular attachment to or understanding of English culture, history, and customs?

Listen to this conversation about Jane Austen's superb novel, now available also in a new 2021 edition by Warbler Press with an afterword by Ulrich Baer, and Virginia Woolf's classic essay on Austen.