Editing Pride and Prejudice (section)

==Reception==
{{Main|Reception history of Jane Austen}}

=== 19th century ===
The novel was well received, with three favourable reviews in the first months following publication.<ref name="Fergus" /> [[Anne Isabella Milbanke]], later to be the wife of [[Lord Byron]], called it "the fashionable novel".<ref name="Fergus" /> Noted critic and reviewer [[George Henry Lewes]] declared that he "would rather have written ''Pride and Prejudice'', or ''[[The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling|Tom Jones]]'', than any of the [[Waverley Novels]]".<ref name="Southam">{{cite book |editor-last=Southam |editor-first=B.C. |title=Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |year=1995 |volume=1 |isbn=978-0-415-13456-9}}</ref>

Throughout the 19th century, not all reviews of the work were positive. [[Charlotte Brontë]], in a letter to Lewes, wrote that ''Pride and Prejudice'' was a disappointment, "a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but [...] no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck".<ref name="Southam" /><ref>{{cite book |last1=Barker |first1=Juliet R. V.|author-link=Juliet Barker|title=The Brontës: A Life in Letters|location=London|publisher=[[Little, Brown Book Group|Little, Brown]]|year=2016 |edition=2016 |oclc=926822509 |isbn=978-1408708316}}</ref> Along with her, [[Mark Twain]] was overwhelmingly negative of the work. He stated, "Everytime I read ''Pride and Prejudice'' I want to dig [Austen] up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone."<ref>{{Cite web |title='Pride and Prejudice': What critics said
|url=https://www.janeaustensummer.org/post/pride-and-prejudice-what-critics-said |access-date=20 January 2024 |website=Jane Austen Summer Program|date=3 October 2018 }}</ref>

Austen for her part thought the "playfulness and epigrammaticism" of ''Pride and Prejudice'' was excessive, complaining in a letter to her sister Cassandra in 1813 that the novel lacked "shade" and should have had a chapter "of solemn specious nonsense, about something unconnected with the story; an essay on writing, a critique on Walter Scott or the history of Buonaparté".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Johnson |first1=Claudia L. |author-link1=Claudia L. Johnson |title=Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel |date=1988 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=9780226401393 |page=73}}</ref>

[[Walter Scott]] wrote in his journal, "Read again and for the third time at least, Miss Austen's very finely written novel of ''Pride and Prejudice''."<ref>{{cite book |title=The journal of Sir Walter Scott |last=Scott |first=Walter |date=1998 |publisher=Canongate |others=Anderson, W.E.K. |isbn=0862418283 |location=Edinburgh |oclc=40905767 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/journalofsirwalt0000scot_x1l6}}</ref>

===20th century===
{{Quote box
| width = 25em
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| quote = <poem>
You could not shock her more than she shocks me,
Beside her [[James Joyce|Joyce]] seems innocent as grass.
It makes me most uncomfortable to see
An English spinster of the middle class
Describe the amorous effects of 'brass',
Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety
The economic basis of society.
</poem>
[[W. H. Auden]] (1937) on Austen<ref name="Southam" />
}}
The American scholar [[Claudia L. Johnson]] defended the novel from the criticism that it has an unrealistic fairy-tale quality.<ref name="Johnson, Claudia page 74">Johnson (1988) p.74</ref> One critic, [[Mary Poovey]], wrote that the "romantic conclusion" of ''Pride and Prejudice'' is an attempt to hedge the conflict between the "individualistic perspective inherent in the bourgeois value system ''and'' the authoritarian hierarchy retained from traditional, paternalistic society".<ref name="Johnson, Claudia page 74"/> Johnson wrote that Austen's view of a power structure capable of reformation was not an "escape" from conflict.<ref name="Johnson, Claudia page 74"/> Johnson wrote the "outrageous unconventionality" of Elizabeth Bennet was in Austen's own time very daring, especially given the strict censorship that was imposed in Britain by the Prime Minister, William Pitt, in the 1790s when Austen wrote ''Pride and Prejudice''.<ref name="Johnson, Claudia page 74"/>

In the early twentieth century, the term "Collins," named for Austen's [[Mr William Collins#Eponym|William Collins]], came into use as slang for a thank-you note to a host.<ref>Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "Collins (n.2)," July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1085984454</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Burrill|first=Katharine|title=Talks with Girls: Letter-Writing and Some Letter-Writers|journal=Chambers's Journal|date=27 August 1904 |volume=7|issue=352|page=611}}</ref>

===21st century===
* In 2003 the BBC conducted a poll for the "[[The Big Read|UK's Best-Loved Book]]" in which ''Pride and Prejudice'' came second, behind ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml |title=BBC – The Big Read – Top 100 Books |date=May 2003 |access-date=12 May 2008}}</ref>
* In a 2008 survey of more than 15,000 Australian readers, ''Pride and Prejudice'' came first in a list of the 101 best books ever written.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=182&ContentID=59459 |title=Aussie readers vote Pride and Prejudice best book |publisher=thewest.com.au |access-date=24 February 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080529172315/http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=182&ContentID=59459 |archive-date=29 May 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
* The 200th anniversary of ''Pride and Prejudice'' on 28 January 2013 was celebrated around the globe by media networks such as the ''[[Huffington Post]]'', ''[[The New York Times]]'', and ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', among others.<ref>{{cite news|url= http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/28/200th-anniversary-of-pride-prejudice_n_2563806.html|title=200th Anniversary of ''Pride And Prejudice'': A HuffPost Books Austenganza|newspaper=The Huffington Post|date=28 January 2013}}</ref><ref name="Schuessler">{{cite news |url=http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/austen-fans-to-celebrate-200-years-of-pride-and-prejudice/?_r=0 |title=Austen Fans to Celebrate 200 Years of ''Pride and Prejudice''|first1=Jennifer |last1=Schuessler |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=28 January 2013 |access-date=7 February 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturevideo/booksvideo/9830981/Jane-Austen-celebrated-on-200th-anniversary-of-Pride-and-Prejudice-publication.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130129054232/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturevideo/booksvideo/9830981/Jane-Austen-celebrated-on-200th-anniversary-of-Pride-and-Prejudice-publication.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=29 January 2013|title=Video: Jane Austen celebrated on 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice publication|date=28 January 2013|work=Telegraph.co.uk}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/pride-prejudice-200th-anniversary-18339770|title='Pride and Prejudice' 200th Anniversary|author=ABC News|work=ABC News}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url =http://www.queensbridgepublishing.com/p/prideandprejudicebyjaneausten.html|title=Queensbridge Publishing: Pride and Prejudice 200th Anniversary Edition by Jane Austen|work=queensbridgepublishing.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://blog.ted.com/2013/01/28/talks-to-celebrate-the-200th-anniversary-of-pride-and-prejudice/|title=Talks to celebrate the 200th anniversary of ''Pride and Prejudice'' |work= TED Blog|author = Kate Torgovnick May|date=28 January 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://entertainment.time.com/2013/01/28/qa-as-pride-and-prejudice-turns-200-austenland-emerges-as-a-sundance-hit/|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|title=Happy 200th Birthday, Pride & Prejudice...and Happy Sundance, Too: The writer/director of the Sundance hit 'Austenland' talks to ''TIME'' about why we still love Mr Darcy centuries years later |first1=Lily |last1=Rothman |date=28 January 2013|access-date=7 February 2015}}</ref>