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Sadie Stein on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Episode 13

Something Is Up with Darcy

Featuring Sadie Stein

Audio episode · 18 min

Sadie Stein on Pride and Prejudice

Something is off about Austen's Mr. Darcy. He calls at the parsonage the day he arrives in Kent, turns up on Elizabeth's favorite walks, asks strange probing questions, and once, alone with her, turns weirdly intense. Chapters thirty through thirty-three, and Sadie Stein lays the evidence out piece by piece, a pattern everyone in Kent seems able to read except Elizabeth herself. First, Lady Catherine de Bourgh gets her full portrait, queen of snobs. In the middle sits the most radical claim Stein makes in this series, about what the book actually believes rank and blood are worth. Her opening witness is a girl who can barely speak.

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