Recording intelligenceAI-generated brief · check the source for context

Pride and Prejudice Chapters 1–3

18:53 recording · AUTO · 1 speaker

Listen to the original

Brief overview

A rich single man takes Netherfield, and the Bennets' marriage hopes collide with Darcy's pride.

  1. A fortune next door is family businessMrs Bennet treats Bingley's four or five thousand a year as the property of one of her five daughters.
  2. Mr Bennet withholds, then springs the visitHe assured his wife he would not go, having already called, and only disclosed it after being told she was sick of Mr Bingley.
  3. Darcy's manners undo ten thousand a yearAdmired for half the evening, he was discovered to be proud and above his company, and everybody hoped he would never come there again.
Executive Summary AI
  • Mrs Bennet opens the reading by telling her husband that Netherfield Park is let at last, and presses him to call on the new tenant.
  • The tenant is Mr Bingley, a young man of large fortune from the north of England with four or five thousand a year, who came down on Monday in a chaise and four and is to take possession before Michaelmas.
  • Mr Bennet teases his wife about her nerves and her favouritism for Lizzie, then reveals in Chapter 2 that he was among the earliest to wait on Mr Bingley, to the astonishment of the whole family.
  • At the assembly Bingley proves lively and dances every dance, while his friend Mr Darcy, reported to have ten thousand a year, is admired for half the evening before being judged proud and disagreeable.
  • Darcy refuses to be introduced to Elizabeth Bennet, calling her tolerable but not handsome enough to tempt him, which Mrs Bennet later recounts at home with much bitterness alongside her delight that Bingley danced twice with Jane.
Key Quote
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
— Chris Goring
Key Quote
“have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?”
— Chris Goring
Key Quote
“I have a high respect for your nerves”
— Chris Goring

Transcript

0:00 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org.
0:11 Today's reading, Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, chapters 1 to 3, read by Chris Goring.
0:18 Chapter 1
0:19 It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
0:30 However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood,
0:36 this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families
0:39 that he is considered the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters.
0:45 My dear Mr. Bennet, said his lady to him one day,
0:49 have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?
0:53 Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.
0:55 But it is returned, she, for Mrs. Long has just been here,
0:59 and she told me all about it.
1:01 Mr. Bennet made no answer.
1:03 Do you not want to know who has taken it
1:05 cried his wife impatiently
1:07 you want to tell me
1:09 and I have no objection to hearing it
1:11 this was invitation enough
1:14 why my dear you must know
1:16 Mrs Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man
1:20 of large fortune from the north of England
1:23 that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place,
1:27 and was so much delighted with it,
1:29 that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately
1:31 that he is to take possession before Michaelmas,
1:34 and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of the week.
1:38 What is his name?
1:40 Bingley.
1:42 Is he married or single?
1:43 Oh, single, my dear, to be sure.
1:45 A single man of large fortune, my dear, to be sure.
1:47 "'A single man of large fortune.
1:49 "'Four or five thousand a year.
1:52 "'What a fine thing for our girls.' "'How so? How can it affect them?'
1:56 "'My dear Mr. Bennet,' replied his wife,
1:58 "'how can you be so tiresome?
2:00 "'You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them.
2:04 "'Is that his design in settling here?' "'Des can you talk so but it is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better.
2:26 For as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr Bingley might like you the best of the
2:30 party.

Showing the first 40 of 256 lines.