Pride and Prejudice: A melodious comedy of manners

FIRST published in 1813, Jane Austen’s piercing observation of society, social customs and snobbery, has enjoyed a popularity granted to few novels. Pride and Prejudice has become one of the best known and best loved works in English literature, and to date has sold in excess of 20m copies.

Whether you were introduced to it at school, or first read it curled up on a window seat at home, you aren’t likely to forget the forthright Lizzie, the obnoxious Mr Darcy, the odious Mr Collins.

And of course it sparked off hundreds of sequels, adaptations, reinterpretations, with every Austen fan searching for more on this fascinating world, and every writer trying to approach from a new angle. Movies and TV series have taken the tale out of the drawing room and into the open air.