The Annotated Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen

One of the pleasures of reading the same books over and over again is seeking to find different ways for those works to be presented and for different elements to enrich one’s understanding of those works.  This pleasure can never be known by those who abandon books they have read in a ceaseless quest for novelty, but there are only a few books that are worth reading over and over again.  Fortunately the novels of Jane Austen are among them, especially Pride & Prejudice.  Though this book is twice as long as the ordinary version of the novel, that extra material is made up of interesting notes that help the reader understand the context of Austen’s writing as well as her allusions to other writings, ranging from the Bible to novels of her time, and point to the way that she subtly set up the reader for understanding while also relying on her readers to be clever enough to get her point without her having to club them over the heads with it in the manner of Victorian (and later) novelists.  Obviously, I prefer the approach that Austen has to her more heavy-handed fellow writers.

For the most part, this particular book follows the early editions of Pride & Prejudice with various textual notes when there are questions of which word should be used.  By and large this book is organized in the following fashion:  on the left one can read the novel and on the right one can see various notes.  Intermixed with these are occasional pictures from other works or of clothing or architecture or landscapes.  The editing of this book does explain quite a few of the jokes and references and shows the self-knowledge that Elizabeth and Darcy (and others) gain over the course of the novel’s events.  Some of the references are particularly poignant, especially Mr. Bennet’s concerns about Elizabeth being miserable if she was in a marriage with a man she could not love or respect, painful self-knowledge that had been gained through his own personal experience.  The novel also contains maps and a detailed chronological essay that seeks to place the novel’s events within a pretty solid relative chronology, all of which makes the novel easier to read and appreciate even if it is a bit longer for all of the notes and other material.

What are the sorts of information that one can gain from this novel?  Many readers who are familiar with the Bible will note the various biblical allusions made by the narrator as well as characters like Mr. Collins and Mr. Bennet whose comments about olive branches harken to Psalm 127.  Other references are more obscure, including the subtle anti-regent message of Elizabeth’s hostility to Lydia going to Brighton as well as the relationship between a low phaeton and the lack of physical stamina of the person driving it.  Of particular interest to me as a reader is Austen’s careful noting of the social conventions of the time and the way that characters either obey or flout them.  It would appear that Austen herself praised characters who at least approached her balance between obeying rules of tact and decorum while also remaining alive to deeper religious matters.  Honest but polite expression of one’s thoughts and feelings is a pattern that one sees in the best of the characters and their interactions here, although that does not always happen, obviously.  Seeing the way that higher status people had to initiate social conduct and pondering on the formality of social relations even within family definitely helps to explain aspects of my own upbringing, which is always interesting as well.