Customer Reviews

Pride and Prejudice (Oxford World's Classics Hardcovers)

5 star:		(946)
4 star:		(173)
3 star:		(65)
2 star:		(40)
1 star:		(56)

 

 

Jane Austen is one of the great masters of the English language, and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is her great masterpiece, a sharp and witty comedy of manners played out in early 19th Century English society, a world in which men held virtually all the power and women were required to negotiate mine-fields of social status, respectability, wealth, love, and sex in order to marry both to their own liking and to the advantage of their family. And such is particularly the case of the Bennetts, a family of daughters whose father's estate is entailed to a distant relative, for upon Mr. Bennett's death they will lose home, land, income, everything. But are the Bennett daughters up to playing a winning hand in this high-stakes matrimonial game without forfeiting their own personal integrity?

This battle of the sexes is largely seen through the eyes of second daughter Elizabeth, who possesses a razor-sharp wit and rich sense of humor--and who finds herself hindered by her own addlepated mother, her sister Jane's hopeless love for the wealthy Mr. Bingley, and her sister Lydia's penchant for scandal... not to mention the high-born, formidable, and outrageously proud Mr. Darcy, who seems determined to trump her every card. But the game of love proves more surprising than either Elizabeth or Mr. Darcy can imagine, and sometimes a seemingly weak hand proves a winning one when all cards are on the table.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is simply one of the funniest novels ever written, peopled with memorable characters brought vividly to life as they both succeed and fail at the game of life according to the manners of their era. It is a novel to which I return again and again, enjoying Austen's brillant talent. I have little respect for people who describe it as dull, slow, out of date, for as long as men and women live and fall in love it will never be out of style, always be meaningful, and always be funny. A masterpiece of wit and style; a timeless novel for the ages.

One of the versions listed is published by "General Books LLC." Another reader complained about the tiny and almost unreadable font - you probably bought the version published by General Books LLC - and here's the reason.

General Books LLC is an imprint of VDM Publishing, (google them and take a look at the Wikipedia article on them) and they specialise in publishing books that are free of copyright without doing any editing or quality control. A few quotes from the publishers website will explain more:

"We created your book using OCR software that includes an automated spell check. Our OCR software is 99 percent accurate if the book is in good condition. However, with up to 3,500 characters per page, even one percent can be an annoying number of typos....

After we re-typeset and designed your book, the page numbers change so the old index and table of contents no longer work. Therefore, we usually remove them. Since many of our books only sell a couple of copies, manually creating a new index and table of contents could add more than a hundred dollars to the cover price....

Our OCR software can't distinguish between an illustration and a smudge or library stamp so it ignores everything except type. We would really like to manually scan and add the illustrations. But many of our books only sell a couple of copies....

We created your book using a robot who turned and photographed each page. Our robot is 99 percent accurate. But sometimes two pages stick together. And sometimes a page may even be missing from our copy of the book. We would really like to manually scan each page and buy multiple copies of each original. But many of our books only sell a couple of copies..... "

So what you're getting if you buy the version published by General Books LLC is a scanned in, unedited, low quality (and with an almost unreadable font from the sounds of it) unindexed / No table of contents book at a higher price than many of the good quality imprints available. Basically, VDM Publishing is flooding Amazon with these low quality prints (450,000 of them are listed now) and, unfortunately, many of them have the reviews associated with better quality imprints associated with them. The product description is insufficient for the buyer that's not aware of this publisher.

Totally unethical marketing.

A reader,Scott Hannigan has commented: "What you have given us is feedback - not a review. There is an appropriate forum for your complaints. You should delete it as it brings down the average score of a classic." In response, I have to say that Amazon does not provide a forum for complaints and has been remarkably resistant to taking on board criticism from many customers over the books published by General Books LLC. In addition, Amazon is the Printer of these POD books and makes a substantial cut from them. Sadly, given that the General Books LLC version is lumped in with other imprints from genuine publishers, there is no real way of making potential buyers aware of the problems with this particular version of the book without inflicting it on all the other versions available. C'est la vie.

Scott - apologies for replying like this but Amazon removed my ability to comment some time ago - I broke ze commenting guidelines. Re "Amazon does provide a feedback section. You will find it under 'My Account', 'Personalization', 'Leave Seller Feedback'" - yes, they do indeed but the response to myself and many others has been uniformly that it's not their problem. Look up the discussion forum on Alphascript Books for a very enlightening backgrounder on this one. That said, if you bought a book from General Books LLC and saw what it was like, you'd be highly annoyed - as most buyers have been - and even if you returned it to Amazon for a refund, you'd be out of pocket for the postage.

It goes without saying Pride and Prejudice is a classic of all time. My concern here and the reason for the low rating is the poor quality of this Kindle version. There are typos and in several places in the text very, very simple errors are made: in a few places, the same word repeats itself along the lines of "the the chair," a couple malapropisms I am positive were not in the original text, and other typesetter's error that, if this Kindle edition had been subject to even a cursory review by a proofreader, would have been caught. I too would like to mention the FACT that emphasized WORDS are all CAPITALIZED in this version as AMAZINGLY annoying. I have never seen an actual book loaded with so many simple errors as this ebook is.

It doesn't get better than Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Whether you're the hopeless romantic or you just love the classics, you're going to love this book. Though I am only sixteen, I consider myself to be moderately well-read. I love reading, and, when I am between books, my life feels desolate and empty. One day, while in the most barren pit of ennui, I picked up Pride and Prejudice at my mother's recommendation. I do not ordinarily like my mother's taste in reading; her favorite books tend to be very dull, but so deep was my boredom that I succumbed to her suggestion. I wasn't displeased with what I found. I fell in love with the book at the first sentence. I brought my beloved book to the dinner table, to my classes and late into the night. I love everything about it. I love the characters; especially Elizabeth Bennet! I love the Victorian vernavular which works so well for this particular novel. I love the scintillating plot and the suspense created by knowing that Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy should be together but their pride and prejudice (hence the title) are temporarily keeping them apart. The language that the novel is written in might be a little more difficult to read than contemporary literature, but once one gets accustomed to it, it makes the novel even more pleasurable. I cannot imagine Elizabeth or Darcy or Bingley or any of the other characters speaking any less eloquently; it would ruin the whole experience! The flowery language completes the whole effect of reading a Jane Austen novel. If a disgruntled female reader put down Pride and Prejudice, pick it back up! I strongly suggest it because it may prove to be tedious at first but if read again, it would probably read more easily. I can offer no suggestions to the male reader, however, because generally this book, in ever essence, is a female novel. I am not saying that men would definetly not enjoy it; I'm simply saying that I have yet to meet any male who has not addressed this book in a very vehement manner. I simply love this book in its entirety, and I know it won't be too long before I pick it up again. Jane Austen surely knew what she was doing when she wrote this one! Her Pride and Prejudice will always have an honored spot on my bookshelf.

I am really enjoying this book. I won't comment on it from a literary sense. Everyone has already exhausted that area. However, I will say that the kindle version is great except that the text does not always translate in the proper fonts. Every so often the author has emphazied a word and it shows in the Kindle as all upper case. I supposed it was supposed to be italics. A similar situation occurred in the Complete Sherlock Holmes. Certain symbols are not translated properly. The intent was still obvious. I was very reluctant to buy a Kindle at first, but I have used up all the available space in my home for paper books. The Kindle is a joy to read though and it goes very fast.

I have always loved the style and social politics of the Regency period (the time of Jane Austen.) But when I read "Sense and Sensibility" in 7th grade I found the first few chapters lifeless, dull and hard to read. Two years later I was encouraged by a friend to give "Pride and Prejudice" a try. I did and have since become a complete Janeite. I am now able to peruse joyfully through "Sense and Sensibility" with a new understanding and appreciation of Jane Austen. The reason? "Pride and Prejudice" is fresh, witty and is a great introduction to Jane Austen's writing style without the formality of some of her other novels (unlike S&S and Persuasion Austen does not give us a 10 page history of each family and their fortune.) If you have never read Jane Austen or have read her other novels and found them boring, read Pride and Prejudice. The characters, and the situations Austen presents to them, are hysterical and reveal a lot about Regency society and morality. This book perfectly compliments a great writer like Jane Austen and is essential to every reader's library. The Penguin Edition of the book is stellar and I personally recommend it not only for the in-depth and indispensable footnotes, but also for the cover that is non-suggestive of any of the characters' appearances. In summary "Pride and Prejudice" is a great book for beginner Austen readers and seasoned fans, and Penguin Classics is a great edition for fully enjoying and understanding the book.

Classics come to life under good audio treatment, as Irene Sutcliffe demonstrates by reading Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE with passion and style. This is the best known of her novels, and some of Austen's less accessible descriptions spring to life under the voice of Irene Sutcliffe, who has worked extensively n the theatre.

This is my favorite Jane Austen novel and I have read it many times. The main flaw in this reading is that it was too hurried. There was barely a pause between chapters and the quick speech did not do justice to all of the characters. I found the reader's voice to be as little high pitched and a little mannered, even for Austen. Flaws aside, I still got enjoyment from this reading. The speed became less distracting as I became used to it and there were some fine readings of exchanges between Elizabeth and Darcy. Bottom line: not up to the standard that Pride and Prejudice deserves.

This is a most amusing and entertaining love story which has ever written that shows human limitations at its best. The title of the book is indeed well-named for pride and prejudice are the essence of the whole book. Pride of the hero Mr. Darcy and prejudice of the heroine Elizabeth Bennet combined to reveal what kind of character a person can be, regardless of his/her financial situation and social stature.
British society under the Regency rule was exemplified and made explicit to generations of readers. The author was telling us about the everyday life of people living in rural England after the Napoleonic Wars, and Britain was on its way to become a maritime power in the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution of Charles Dickens' days had not yet arrived to upset the power of the English nobility and the landed gentry, so much so that gentlemen like Mr. Darcy, a landowner of vast estates, could live a life of luxury and self-importance, and could easily look down on the less fortunate who had to work for a living.
Reading Jane Austen's work is always a pleasure. It puts me in with the characters, as if I were an unseen and unknown observer in the room! In fact, I feel that I am living in the early 1800s, doing the same things that those characters are doing, and feeling just as they are feeling.

This is a nice copy of the book. It has a built in ribbon bookmark and nice line drawing illustrations. It is about 3 inches wide and 5 inches long (smaller than a standard book). It is a very pretty version of the book though, and would be great as a gift. Seems like it is well made. It does have thin pages, but it doesn't seem problematic.