A Beloved Classic Of All Time, With One Of The Most Favorite Love Stories Of All Time

Pride and Prejudice was first published in 1813, although Jane Austen had written it between October of 1796 and August of 1797. This was at a time when women were expected to stay at home and just be a pretty face, not think for themselves, and not involve themselves in politics or careers (read: “men’s work”). Men were authors; women were not. Austen’s father first submitted Pride and Prejudice to a publisher in 1797, under the title First Impressions, but it was rejected probably for the sole reason that it had been written by a woman. Even when Pride and Prejudice was finally published in 1813, Austen’s name did not appear as the author of the book, and in fact, Austen was never given credit for being the author of any of her works while she was alive. The title page of Pride and Prejudice, when published, read “by the author of Sense and Sensibility.”
　　
Regardless, Jane Austen is one of the most widely read authors of English literature and there is no doubt in my mind as to why this is true. She had a lot to say about women and society in England during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Pride and Prejudice is quite comic and it paints a clear picture of how women who lacked their own fortune oftentimes had to forsake love to marry for economic security and social status.
　　
It's a very sweet story in which the authoress has picturized the glamoures society of England during the 17th century. It has made me experience the world enchanted by true love and the attraction of a man towards a girl. We can understand the different relationships like sister, mother, child and a lover.
　　
-Srishti, Delhi
　　
I feel that after reading the book I have learned a lot about the old times and how life used to be. For example, most girls married not for love but for security. I've recently watched the new film and many parts that are in the book aren't in the film that I felt should be. Overall very sweet love story.
　　
-Jessica, Isle of Wight
　　
I had to read this book for a high school project. Being 16 and growing up as a woman in today's society it is nice to read a book about the old days. Sometimes I feel that I can be a lot like the protagonist of the story. Social inferiority (much like Darcy's) still can be found these days. Overall I give this book 100% on my scale, I'm not one for the sappy novels but this one is for sure a page-turner!
　　
-Alpana, Canada
　　
I first read this book when I was just 10 and from that time on it has been my favorite book. The book conveys the feelings and emotions of all its different characters very well and charms all its readers with the wit and liveliness of Elizabeth Bennet, the misunderstood character of Mr. Darcy, the beautiful, sensible Jane, and the agreeable Mr. Bingley as well as all the other characters. This book, with its many different types of characters is definitely a must read for everyone.
　　
It is a satisfying love story, if that’s what you’re after, but it’s also much more than that. The characters are great—even the ones whose personalities I can’t stand—and the book really has a lot to say about people’s pride, vanity and prejudices in general.
　　
I love this book because I love the characters. A few of them really work my nerves, but I still love how well-written they are. Elizabeth is my favorite because she is so independent, headstrong and outspoken. She refuses to marry for any reason other than love, even if that means she doesn’t end up marrying someone who can give her a better economic and social status. She has her faults, but she is not afraid to admit to them when she knows she’s wrong. Her mother and two of her younger sisters annoy her as much as they annoy me, and she can’t stand the snotty sisters of Mr. Bingley, whom I despise every time I read the book.

It is apparent from the first chapter that Elizabeth takes after her father, who is also headstrong and outspoken. He loves to put his annoying wife in her place, but he does it in very humorous ways without being too nasty. I get a lot of laughs out of Pride and Prejudice every time I read it, and most of those laughs are courtesy of Mr. Bennet. Mrs. Bennet annoys the heck out of me and I find myself audibly telling her to shut up throughout the book. Seriously, if she would only just shut up. I avoid people like the snotty Bingley sisters like the plague in real life because if anyone deserves a good slap across the face, they do. People who think they’re better than everyone else because of money or social status, like the Bingley sisters and Lady Catherine (Mr. Darcy’s aunt), just disgust me. Mr. Collins could use a nice piece of duct tape over his mouth, as well, since he really makes himself look like a fool every time he speaks. Finally, Mr. Darcy is infuriating and endearing at the same time.

Wit against wit, pride against prejudice, the continued encounters each grew into something more. It was the belief then that society could not tolerate a relationship such as theirs, and while one (in the beginning) struggled against his feelings, another was entirely ignorant of his affection towards her. It could not be overlooked however when in light of his feelings, his mistakes that caused the sadness of a loved one were shown, and his unjust actions towards an acquaintance were clarified. What appeared to be pride and prejudice on both sides eventually gave way in the story, leading to respect, modesty and even love.
　　
Truly a love story what one would like to believe, still existed in our modern world.
　　
What I loved most about the book is the witty dialogue between the characters, with a detailed relay of events and presentation of characters throughout the entire story, I believe it to be a much more interesting presentation than the movies themselves. One of the best things in the book is that despite the use of somewhat classical English, each sentence in itself is a presentation of the artful language of such a time. It was also a great thing to have to watch how slowly each of the characters evolved within the story, and also how eventually they came either to love, accept, and feel dislike for each other.
　　
A book I wholly recommend, this book is honestly not an easy read and may need more concentration in reading it than other books. Really a wonderful classic. Now I see why many people fell in love with the book, the author and its characters. Definitely a book one must read at least once in their life.

One Thousand And One Nights May Company Your Children

There was a time, once, when the life of the Arabian Nights was lived more fully and more consequentially in places very remote from even the loosest notions of what might be called Arabia. It was 18th-century Europe where the stories' first print publications saw the light, and Europe, too, where the tales were so highly prized - while back home they were frequently dismissed as trifles, vulgar and insubstantial.

Before Galland, the stories had existed for centuries in a constantly shape-shifting collection. It came to be known as Alf Laylawa-Layla One Thousand and One Nights, and it was a manuscript of this text (from the Syrian recension) which Galland took as his primary source. But he added stories not found in any of his predecessors, too, among them "Aladdin" and "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", which have since become perhaps the Nights' most familiar components to Western readers.

Not that they ever had one "home" at all, of course. The component stories have roots in Iraq, Egypt, India, Syria, Iran and elsewhere, and were strapped together as a miscellaneous bundle that Europeans labelled "Arabian", which meant simply that they had some approximately Eastern exoticism in common, slightly weird colours and tastes, and people in a far-off land behaving in ways that we probably wouldn't here.

On the following morning, the merchant and his wife went to the bull’s crib, and sat down there; and the driver came, and took out the bull; and when the bull saw his master, he shook his tail, and showed his alacrity by sounds and actions, bounding about in such a manner that the merchant laughed until he fell backwards. His wife, in surprise, asked him, At what dost thou laugh? He answered, At a thing that I have heard and seen; but I cannot reveal it; for if I did, I should die. She said, Thou must inform me of the cause of thy laughter, even if thou die.—I cannot reveal it, said he: the fear of death prevents me.—Thou laughedst only at me, she said; and she ceased not to urge and importune him until he was quite overcome and distracted. So he called together his children and sent for the Kadi and witnesses, that he might make his will, and reveal the secret to her, and die: for he loved her excessively, since she was the daughter of his paternal uncle, and the mother of his children, and he had lived with her to the age of a hundred and twenty years. Having assembled her family and his neighbours, he related to them his story, and told them that as soon as he revealed his secret he must die; upon which every one present said to her.

We conjure thee by Allah that thou give up this affair, and let not thy husband, and the father of thy children, die. But she said, I will not desist until he tell me, though he die for it. So they ceased to solicit her; and the merchant left them, and went to the stable to perform the ablution, and then to return, and tell them the secret, and die. 16

Now he had a cock, with fifty hens under him, and he had also a dog; and he heard the dog call to the cock, and reproach him, saying, Art thou happy when our master is going to die? The cock asked, How so?—and the dog related to him the story; upon which the cock exclaimed, By Allah! our master has little sense: I have fifty wives; and I please this, and provoke that; while he has but one one wife, and cannot manage this affair with her: why does he not take some twigs of the mulberry tree, and enter her chamber, and beat her until she dies or repents? She would never, after that ask him a question respecting anything.—And when the merchant heard the words of the cock, as he addressed the dog, he recovered his reason, and made up his mind to beat her.—Now, said the Wezir to his daughter Shahrazad, perhaps I may do to thee as the merchant did to his wife. She asked, And what did he? He answered, He entered her chamber after he had cut off some twigs of the mulberry tree, and hidden them there; and then said to her, Come into the chamber, that I may tell thee the secret while no one sees me, and then die:—and when she had entered, he locked the chamber door upon her, and beat her until she became almost senseless and cried out, I repent:—and she kissed his hands and his feet, and repented, and went out with him; and all the company, and her own family, rejoiced; and they lived together in the happiest manner until death.

One Thousand and One Nights: A New Re-imagining, By Hanan Al-Shaykh

Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights, By Marina Warner

Just as any act of translation is by its nature a creative, or re-creative act, so storytelling itself is always fundamentally an enchantment. The reader of the Nights – like Shahrazad's king – is enchanted by stories that are themselves about enchantments. It's largely this inner wheel – the magical "content", if you like, with magicians, transformations, flying carpets and all – that is Warner's subject.

With the text of the Nights as her anchor, Warner's widely referenced argument spins outwards and back again - to some close relations, such as Lotte Reiniger's "shadow film", The Adventures of Prince Achmed, but also further to The West-Eastern Divan (Goethe's collection of lyric poems), and even to the symbols on the Persian rug covering Freud's couch. "The Persian rug, the Arabian nights and the psychoanalytic process," she writes, "are all forms of storytelling."

Where Al-Shaykh gives us a translation that, like any translation, reveals and acknowledges its origins as it simultaneously dissembles, Warner cracks open the frame to expose the workings of the component parts. She dismantles and rearticulates them on an exhilarating scale, in a book dense with allusions and wide-ranging new associations. Which is, I suppose, a sort of re-creation too.

In the late 1920s, the art publisher H. Piazza produced a twelve-volume version of The 1001 Nights that was one of the most beautiful ever made. It included splendid illustrations by Mohammed Racim and wonderful miniatures by painter Leon Carre. Today, Assouline is publishing an abridged version of this masterpiece, which includes the most famous and enchanting of the tales, from the story of King Shahryar, to the story of Sinbad the sailor, Ali Baba and the forty thieves, or Aladdin and the magic lamp...all told by the beautiful and sensual Shahrazad.