10 Surprising Facts About Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice appears on best-loved literature lists across the globe, is a fixture in high school classrooms, and has spawned a rabid fan base and countless film and television adaptations. The story of how Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s disdain for the wealthy, prideful Fitzwilliam Darcy turned to love has sold more than 20 million copies since its first appearance more than 200 years ago. But though the novel was reviewed positively and was well-received by the upper classes at the time, it was no widespread sensation. It wasn’t until the 20th century that the book and its author were rediscovered and lifted to the rarefied place in the English literature pantheon they hold today. Here’s what you should know about it.

Jane Austen experienced rejection.

Pride and Prejudice is about young women trying to find good marriage matches. This issue must have been fresh on the young author’s mind when she wrote the book. At age 20, Austen had a flirtation with a young man named Tom Lefroy—and like a scene out of one of her novels, she flirted scandalously with him at a ball. “Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together,” she wrote to her sister Cassandra. “He is a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man, I assure you.” But for some reason the romance never extended beyond a few ballroom dances—Austen would write her sister: “At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy … My tears flow as I write this, at this melancholy idea."

Mr. Darcy would be the equivalent of a Rockefeller or a Vanderbilt.

The characters in Pride and Prejudice constantly exclaim over Mr. Darcy’s 10,000 pounds a year, but how rich is that exactly? In 2014, The Telegraph calculated that adjusting for financial changes, a decent estimate might be 12 million pounds, or $18.7 million U.S. dollars a year. And that’s just income on top of a much larger fortune. It’s no wonder Mrs. Bennet gushed about Elizabeth’s engagement—“How rich and how great you will be! What pin-money, what jewels, what carriages you will have!” Marrying Darcy would be like marrying a Rockefeller or a Vanderbilt.

Lydia Bennet says she’s eloping to Gretna Green—the Las Vegas of her day.

In the book, the Bennet family is almost ruined when Lydia elopes with the nefarious soldier George Wickham. “I am going to Gretna Green,” Lydia writes to her friend, “and if you cannot guess with who, I shall think you a simpleton.” Unlike England, Scotland allowed people under 21 to get married without parental consent, and without the same legal and religious bureaucracy. Gretna Green was the first town over the Scottish border. There, a young couple could be joined with “marriage by declaration,” which often occurred in a blacksmith shop. Of course, that’s not what happens with Lydia and Wickham.

Austen and her sister were as close as Jane and Elizabeth Bennett.

In Pride and Prejudice, the relationship between the two sisters is central to the novel. In real life, Jane was very close to her sister Cassandra. They wrote each other constantly when they were apart and would voluntarily share a bedroom, even when they could sleep separately. When Jane died, Cassandra wrote her niece: “She was the sun of my life, the gilder of every pleasure, the soother of every sorrow.” It’s no wonder that close sisters appear in a number of Austen’s novels.

One publisher rejected Pride and Prejudice without even reading it.

Austen finished the book, then titled First Impressions, when she was 21 years old. In 1797, her father sent a letter to publisher Thomas Cadell, writing that he had “a Manuscript Novel comprised in three Vols., about the length of Miss [Fanny] Burney’s Evelina.” He asked how much it would cost him to publish the book and what Cadell would pay for copyright. In response, Cadell scrawled “Declined by Return of Post” on the letter and sent it back with insulting speed. The novel languished for 14 years until, flush with the success ofSense and Sensibility, Austen revised the manuscript. Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813 when she was 37 years old.

The book’s title came from a Fanny Burney novel.

Austen probably got the title Pride and Prejudice from Cecilia by Fanny Burney, where the phrase is repeated several times—and in block capitals, no less. “The whole of this unfortunate business,” said Dr. Lyster, “has been the result of PRIDE and PREJUDICE. … If to PRIDE and PREJUDICE you owe your miseries, so wonderfully is good and evil balanced, that to PRIDE and PREJUDICE you will also owe their termination.”

Pride and Prejudice was published anonymously.

Austen didn’t put her name on her novels, and would only say they were “By a Lady.” The title page ofPride and Prejudice said, “by the author ofSense and Sensibility.” It wasn’t until after her death that her brother revealed her name to the public.

Austen that worried Pride and Prejudice was too frivolous.

Because Pride and Prejudice humorously deals with women getting married, it’s often described as “chick lit,” a label some fans find reductionist. But Austen herself worried the book wasn’t serious enough. “The work is rather too light, and bright, and sparkling,” she wrote. “It wants shade; it wants to be stretched out here and there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had.” Overall, though, Austen was “well satisfied enough” with the novel, especially with the character of Elizabeth. In another letter, she said, “I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least I do not know.”

Austen sold her copyright to Pride and Prejudice for 110 pounds—but wanted 150.

Austen sold the copyright for Pride and Prejudice to her publishers for 110 pounds, even though she said in a letter that she wanted 150 pounds. She chose this one-time payment, forfeiting any risk or reward connected to the future of the book. It was a bad gamble: The book was a bestseller, and was on its third edition by 1817.

Pride and Prejudice has been adapted hundreds of times.

The adaptations of Pride and Prejudice seem endless. There have been at least 11 film and TV versions of the book, including the 1995 BBC miniseries starring Colin Firth as a memorable Darcy and the 2005 movie version starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen. Other (looser) adaptations include Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), the Bollywood movie Bride and Prejudice (2004), 2012-2013 web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, the 2009 book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (adapted into a movie in 2016), and the 2011 mystery novel Death Comes to Pemberley, which was adapted into a series of its own two years later.

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A version of this story ran in 2015; it has been updated for 2024.