Pride and Prejudice Group Read: Introduction and Question Box for Chapters 1-6

The votes are in, and Pride and Prejudice it shall be!
Now it’s time to get your copy of the book. It’s readily available at the bookstore (new or used), library, or even online.
Let’s start reading, and discuss Chapters 1-6 at the end of next week (February 6 or thereabouts.) I’ll open each week’s discussion with a post, with discussion to follow in the comments box. I’ll be putting all posts in their own Group Read category, so they can be easily retrieved.
One thing that’s been on my mind is how to handle those details of Jane Austen’s world that might be confusing to those new to her books — things like livings, precedence, reticules, shillings and pence, and so on. Some people are going to have books with extensive notes, but others might not.
There are a lot of books out there that answer those kinds of background questions — for example, What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool. The Republic of Pemberley is also a gold mine. (If you don’t like surprises, be warned; the RoP is also chock-full of plot giveaways.)
I also propose a weekly area for people to post their Pressing Questions about language, customs, “what’s happening” — that kind of thing. Please feel free to post any questions about Chapters 1-6 in this post’s comments box.
Let’s go!

18 comments

  1. Question: What is this four thousand a year and ten thousand a year stuff?
    Answer: Yearly incomes — for example, four thousand pounds yearly (a very good income.)
    Women’s wealth is usually given as a lump sum (Miss Brambleroot has five thousand pounds) — the amount they bring with them into a marriage. (The idea is that the money is invested and they live off the interest.)
    I have no idea how knowledge of these incomes passed into the grapevine — it’s not like Mr Bingley is writing Hi, I’m Bingley, and I have four thousand a-year on his calling card.

  2. Now this sounds like fun. May I join? I am casting about for some good reading to take me through the rest of the winter anyway.
    I’d just like to point out that any Jane Austen fans who are quilters might like to look at http://www.lindafranz.com
    Linda has written a delightfully challenging quilting book that ties together her skill at handpiecing and her love of Austen’s works.

  3. Oh gosh, I love that ROP page. I visited it a few times years ago, and had forgotten about it. I still have no idea how they figured out those per annum figures. Sheesh, you’d be hard-pressed to learn of anyone’s income today.
    In any case, I also wanted to share the following URL (to the Jane Austen Society) which may help with some of the terms and history as well.
    http://www.printsgeorge.com/Jane_Austen-society.htm

  5. It wasn’t especially difficult to figure out what someone’s income was. Wills were read out, and from there it was just a matter of doing a little math. The most popular safe investment of the period was consolidated funds, which had been paying a dividend of four percent a year since Caesar was a cadet. Likewise rents of house and agricultural property went at a fairly fixed rate. Women’s money was a lump sum if it was a question of dowry; if she were single and living on her own (or at any rate paying her own expenses), it would be her income or allowance that would be talked of. I can’t recommend What Jane Austen Ate et cetera: it’s riddled with inaccuracies. The ROP site is much more reliable.

  6. Speaking of money: 12 pence = 1 shilling; 20 shillings = 1 pound; 21 shillings = 1 guinea (the fashionable shops charged guineas, of which the extra shilling functioned as a finance charge, because the bills would be paid, if the tradesman was lucky, every three months – humbler shops charged in pounds, because they expected to be paid in cash); a pound was approximately equal to $5 in American money, which was a great deal at that time. Four hundred pounds a year was enough for a family to live in modest comfort in a small town or in the country.

  9. Peony’s Pride and Prejudice

    For those who haven’t encountered yet, please consider joining Peony’s group reading of Pride and Prejudice and commenting on it. I might be a fellow-traveller or silent observer as I’m not certain I can maintain the reading load with my…

  12. Michaelmas is September 29th, now known as the Feast of the Archangels. Allowances, interest, bills, and all manner of financial instruments were paid on quarter-days, that is, at the end of the third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth months of the year. That being so, quarter-days were convenient dates on which to commence leases, loans, and so forth.

  13. I’ve been meaning to throw in explanations of some terms that puzzled me when I was first reading Austen; I beg the indulgence of those of you who know this already.
    disinterested: It means being neutral or impartial, without a personal or financial interest in a situation. It doesn’t mean bored – that would be “uninterested”.
    want: need or require. It doesn’t mean a desire, it means a lack, as in “It wants only ten minutes until five.”
    capital: very good, best kind or quality. Its meaning as available funds wasn’t much in conversational use at this time.
    complaisant: cooperative, obliging, likely to comply with the wishes of others. It doesn’t mean the same as complacent, in fact, it almost means the opposite.
    “first two dances”: At this time it was the fashion to dance through two tunes before changing partners. It was rather bad manners to dance more than twice (that is, more than two occasions of two country-dance tunes) with the same partner; dances were social events and not dates, and people were expected to mix freely with their friends rather than to pair off.
    intelligence: information, not brains. I must confess that when I read these books aloud to the family, my children roared every time someone “had no intelligence to give” or “received the unwelcome intelligence”. You can imagine what it was like to read aloud about Mansfield Park and “my poor Fanny”.

  14. A hectic week here, I don’t even remember if I’ve finished Chapter 6. Perhaps after Mass this evening I can catch up.
    I notice that Mrs. B begs her family to have compassion ON her poor nerves, not compassion FOR her nerves. I guess it was a closer synonym for pity in Austen’s English.
    What is a chaise and four? An open or closed carriage, perhaps with a single bench seat?
    There is mention of a parlor game called loo. I always thought this was a British expression for lavatory. Is this a card game?

  15. A chaise was a closed carriage, drawn by two (a pair), four (a team), or even six horses. Inside were two bench seats, one facing forward and the other backward. Confusingly, “sitting forward” meant sitting in the foremost seat, that is, the one which had its back to the horses. The preferred seat was the one which faced the horses. The driver sat fairly high up at the front, and was communicated with by rapping on the roof of the coach with one’s stick or the handle of an umbrella, or by tugging on a string which was run through a vent and tied to his sleeve.

  16. Would the size of the team drawing the chaise be an indication of the affluence of the owner? A chaise and four perhaps was a hint that could help one estimate Bingley’s income?

  18. Strictly speaking, a “team” has only one size – four horses. Driving with four horses was much faster, but much more expensive, than hiring a pair only, so it was for people who had money enough to make economy less important than convenience. The only reason anyone would have six horses is if the load were extremely heavy; stagecaches and mailcoaches (Regency equivalent of, say, intercity buses and passenger trains, respectively) were pulled by six horses.

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