Pride and Prejudice is Austen’s best-known novel. Published in three volumes, it was an instant success, with Anne Isabella Milbanke, Lord Byron’s wife, calling it ‘the fashionable novel’ of the season. It has sold over twenty million copies to date. Of all Austen’s works, Pride and Prejudice has been most adapted into film, television and theatre productions, the most popular being the 1995 BBC television production starring Colin Firth as Mr Darcy. The novel continues to inspire popular literature, such as Helen Fielding’s 1996 novel, Bridget Jones’s Diary and Curtis Sittenfeld’s Eligible (2016), part of The Austen Project, a series in which six contemporary novelists retell Austen’s six major works.
