Celebrating Openings #4: “Pride & Prejudice” by Jane Austen

“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, 1775 – 1817

I promised, in February, when I kicked off featuring some of the great book openings, that I wasn’t going to start with Jane Austen and Pride & Prejudice. 😀

Unquestionably, though, it is one of the great opening lines, as well as being among the most universally enduring in the public psyche. So I feel that to leave it any longer would be remiss.

So many adaptations… (1995)

By way of a reminder, this series is looking at some of my personal favourites among book openings, starting with the classics. As for why — well, it’s the opening that must reach out, seize the reader’s attention, and haul them (unprotesting!) into the story.

Obviously, since it’s a favourite, I (and a multitude of other readers) believe Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice opening does exactly that.

The 2005 film

And like Tolstoy’s opening in Anna Karenina, I believe it provides a key to unlocking the story. Firstly, in the obvious way of being a tale of young men and women making marriages, but not necessarily finding true love, in a very socially structured society.

Secondly, we understand that nothing about this story should be taken at face value, because right from the outset, the reader is exposed to Jane Austen’s irony and (keen) sense of the ridiculous.

The 1980 TV series — screenplay by Fay Weldon

I was a voracious reader from a very early age, so first read Pride & Prejudice when I was nine years of age. What is fascinating, in retrospect, is that despite my lack of relevant life experience, I totally “got” that this was irony (even though I may not have used that word to describe it), as well as fully appreciating the (delicious) humour of the statement, and the whole situation it immediately sets up.

Genius? I think so, and definitely among the most brilliant of opening lines.