The Publication of Pride and Prejudice
This week marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. It actually was on Monday, January the 28th. Today, though, is my day in our haphazard rotation, and as I have mostly presented pieces of history from the Regency era, this is one of them. Often we equate John Murray (1778-1843) as a preeminent publisher of the period. He was. His father, also John (1745-1793), had started the famous publishing business. John II brought forth such works as Scott's Marmion , Byron's Childe Harold , The Quarterly Review with the help of future prime minister George Canning . Still, John Murray was not the first publisher of Austen's works, and not the publisher of Pride and Prejudice. This fell to Thomas Egerton. A man who did publish Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Jane Austen began the writing of her most famous novel in 1796 and finished this novel then called First Impressions in August of 1797. On November 1 Austen's father, Ge...