"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man
in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
Thus memorably begins Jane Austen's Pride and
Prejudice, one of the world's most popular novels.
"Pride and Prejudice--Austen's own 'darling child'--tells
the story of fiercely independent Elizabeth Bennet, one of
five sisters who must marry rich, as she confounds the
arrogant, wealthy Mr. Darcy. What ensues is one of the most
delightful and engrossingly readable courtships known to
literature, written by a precocious Austen when she was just
twenty-one years old.