200 Years of Pride and Pejudice

[HEPZIBAH]

It's 200 years today since Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was published.

I'm sure it's a book that many of us have read and if not we've probably seen at least one film or t.v. series based on it. Do books such as this, written a very different age, still have any relevence to today's readers? Do you think the language as used when written is understandable today, or does today's reader need it updating into a modern, unstandable [simplified] version of the English language?

[LovelyLadyLux]

Wow - interesting trivia. How Hepzibah did you come to track this?

[HEPZIBAH]

It was on some UK news/magazine programmes.
I live not too many miles from Chawton - Jane Austen's home. I also often walk past the house where she died in Winchester - a very popular house for Austenites to have their photographs taken by the blue plaque! She was buried in my local Cathedral and the stone is still there in the floor for all to see.

http://www.janeausten.org/

[LovelyLadyLux]

Ahhh - now it all makes perfect sense and 'tis nice you get an up close and personal touch of Jane Austen. Just seemed a rather remote or removed bit of trivia from the mainstream......

[HEPZIBAH]

Oh I know lot's of trivia - it's the important stuff that I don't know!

[Winged Isis]

It's all over the news here, too.

I love her books and NOOOOOO! never, never, NEVER change the language!!! Anyone with any intelligence can understand it.

Yes they still have relevance, especially in light of internet dating. Families and friends still meddle in each others' lives. Women still get ruined by dangerous men. Fortunes are still sought. Marriages still get "arranged". We can learn a lot about all types of relationships from her books.

Shakespeare's stories are still relevant, so why not hers? I wish I could be there for some of the vents.... fortunate you!

[Winged Isis]

Oops, that should have been "events'!

While driving today, I heard on the radio a world expert from UK talking about Aspergers. He says Mr Darcy, with his lack of social skills and strong desire to help those in distress, was a classic Aspie! I have taught many; I think he is right.

[Yildez]

One of my all-time favourite books, I re-read it every couple of years, and indulge myself with the dvd of the BBC series every now and then!! Mr Darcy, a bottle of red and a large bar of Cadburys - complete and utter bliss!!!!