Well, at least that is what the mothers and daughters in the town of Meryton believe; and when the affable Mr Bingley, young, rich and single, moves into the neighbourhood, the mothers want him for their son-in-law and the daughters want him for their husband.
Mr Bingley has brought his friend Mr Darcy with him. Darcy is far richer and more handsome than Bingley and just as single. He's a dream come true for the ladies of Meryton, and then he opens his mouth. It quickly becomes a truth universally acknowledged that Darcy is a self-opinionated and bumptious snob. Who would want to marry such a man? Certainly not Elizabeth Bennet, the second of five daughters of a solidly respectable country gent. She says of Darcy:
I believe, Ma'am, I may safely promise you never to dance with him.
And with these words Elizabeth seals her fate. All we need do now is wait and see which path she and Darcy will take to the wedding chapel together.
In the course of the novel we get to see the little world of the Bennets and the people who move in and out of their circle - some of them endearing, some repulsive, and some of ambiguous personal merit, but all very memorable and well drawn. It is to Austen's great credit that readers can easily immerse themselves in the story and come to care for the people they meet in the pages.
Pride and Prejudice gives us insight into the world of the English rural gentry in the early nineteenth century, and the reader is scarcely made aware that England had been at war with Napoleon's France for the better part of a decade. No, the novel strictly confines itself to an examination of the manners and morality of that small slice of English society in a diverting way. And why not? Diversion is good when it is this entertaining.
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