Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice': A Sourcebook (review)

Containing extracts from contemporary documents and modern criticism, annotated key passages of the novel, and suggestions for further reading, this sourcebook provides a helpful map for undergraduate students and serious readers wishing to explore both the novel's 'sparkling surface and its deepening shadows.´

Through a chronology, biographical directory, and excerpts of sixteen contemporary works, the first section, 'Contexts,´ situates the novel and Austen's career in the political and social turbulence of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Europe. To illustrate the novel's complexities, Morrison connects some of the novel's preoccupations such as pride, class, or women's education with short passages from works by such diverse authors as Amelia Opie, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft, Edmund Burke, and William Godwin. In some cases, such as the paragraph from Joseph Highmore on politeness, commentary overtakes the excerpt, the former being longer and more interesting. Five selections from Austen's letters offer a glimpse into her views on authorship and publication. The 'Biographical Directory´ concluding this first section would be better placed as an appendix as the names included appear throughout the sourcebook. While most of this contextual material is already widely available, the sourcebook assembles it with well-written scholarly commentary.

Contemporary reviews, selections of novelists' comments, sixteen excerpts of modern criticism, 1939–2002, and three remarks on the novel in performance make up the section devoted to interpretations. Although much must be excluded in a work of this brevity, the collection represents a range of critical approaches but unfortunately lacks an extract from such influential critics as Brian Southam, Tony Tanner, and Marilyn Butler. The subsection detailing performances of the novel is most welcome but also frustratingly limited to commentary on the 1995 bbc version. In addition to several films, the novel has inspired adaptations for the stage and musical theatre. A subsection on sequels to the novel would complement this section.

Throughout this text but most notably in the headnotes to the key passages, parenthetical references direct readers to relevant documents elsewhere in the sourcebook. This feature is the heart of the sourcebook's contribution to scholarship as a teaching text. For instance, the note introducing the passage in which Lady Catherine de Bourgh confronts Elizabeth Bennet (volume 3, chapter 14) refers readers to a contemporary document, two comments from novelists, a passage from modern criticism, and an illustration on the facing page. Although flipping through the sourcebook can be distracting – and the structure seems indebted to the more fluid medium of electronic hypertext – such a layered approach encourages a reader's independent, critical thinking by presenting several different perspectives from which to understand a particular episode. In addition to the many resources both excerpted and cited throughout the sourcebook, Morrison offers a short list of works for further reading, each entry thoughtfully and briefly annotated.

This sourcebook is accessible to all readers but should be particularly useful to undergraduates. Morrison's selections are judicious, representing a range of contexts and critical approaches, and his introductions, lively and succinct.