and Sensibility." Like its predecessor, and like "Northanger
Abbey," it was written at Steventon Rectory, and it is
generally regarded not only as its author's most popular but
as her most representative achievement. Wickham, the
all-conquering young lady-killer of the story, is a favourite
character of the novelist He figures as Willoughby in "Sense
and Sensibility," as Crawford in "Mansfield Park," as
Churchill in "Emma," and--to a certain extent--as Wentworth in
"Persuasion." Another characteristic feature of "Pride and
Prejudice" is Wickham's unprepared attachment to Lydia Bennet,
resembling as it does Robert Ferrars' startling engagement to
Lucy Steele in "Sense and Sensibility," Frank Churchill's
secret understanding with Jane Fairfax in "Emma," and Captain
Benwick's sudden and unexpected union with Louisa Musgrove in
"Persuasion."


_I.--A Society Ball at Longbourn_


All Longbourn was agape with excitement when it became known that
Netherfield Park, the great place of the neighbourhood, was let to a
rich and handsome young bachelor called Bingley, and that Mr. Bingley
and his party were to attend the forthcoming ball at the Assembly Rooms.

Nowhere did the news create more interest and rouse greater hopes than
in the household of the Bennets, the chief inhabitants of Longbourn; for
Mr. Bennet--who was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour,
reserve and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had
been insufficient to make his wife understand his character--was the