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Door-bells, petrified spar, and knowing thyself: favorite Shapard annotations from Volume 2 of P&P.

Hello Austenites! I’m back with my favorite David M. Shapard annotations from Volume Two of Pride & Prejudice! And this is truly a very saucy’ volume as it contains quite arguably one of the worst marriage proposals in the history of fiction! Let’s get to it. “On the stairs were a troop of little boys and girls, whose eagerness for their cousin’s appearance would not allow them to wait in the drawing-room, and whose whole shyness, as they had not seen her for a twelvemonth, prevented their coming lower.” (p.290)This part of the novel is when Lizzy stops in London…

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Happy Pride & Prejudice Day!

On this day in 1813, our girl Jane introduced us to our favorite, most clever gal, Elizabeth Bennet and the brooding & incomparable Fitzwilliam Darcy. Jane started writing her first version of this classic, First Impressions, when she was just 20 years old in 1796. She would rework the manuscript in 1811-1812 and transform it into the beloved novel we know and love today.             I am currently reading The Annotated Pride and Prejudice, annotated and edited by David M. Shapard. It’s 774 pages of fangirl bliss, complete with maps, illustrations, a detailed chronology of events, literary comments and analysis,…

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