Pride and Prejudice - in the view of 2026 society is Mr. Wickham simply a predator?

No mention of portly! We’re just told he’s ’silent and grave’, ‘on the wrong side of five and thirty’, and ‘not handsome’, though his face is ‘sensible’. And there’s a reference later on to him wearing flannel waistcoats and having rheumatism.

I think that the casting of the male characters is in part why the Ang Lee/Emma Thompson S and S adaptation works. That adaptation makes Edward much more charming, funny and self-deprecating, Brandon smoulderingly sexy and Willoughby more than just a cad. We see why the sisters would fall in love with them. Whereas in the novel, Edward and Brandon are dull though estimable, and Willoughby is a creep.

@whatwouldlilacerullodo — that’s my real question about Lydia. How is it she seems to have missed out on key elements of the moral education her three oldest sisters have clearly had? Did Mrs Bennet just slacken off by the time she got to the two youngest?

I meant that Emma doesn’t see her father as selfish. She was always glad she and Isabella hadn’t been sent away after their mother’s death.

Emma understands her father and doesn’t resent him at all. She knows she needs to remain at Hartfield to care for him. She does it out of love and devotion.

Dr Perry was being a good friend (and a comfort) to Mr Woodhouse by validating his anxieties rather than contradicting him. But he would’ve made a lot of money from him.

He seems oppressive to us but not to Emma. She is so loving and patient with him.

"...a very short parley with her own heart produced the most solemn resolution of never quitting her father. She even wept over the idea of it, as a sin of thought."

@Pemba “Where does it say Colonel Brandon is PORTLY!? I don't remember that at all.”

It doesn’t!

"Colonel Brandon . . . was silent and grave. His appearance however was not unpleasing, in spite of his being in the opinion of Marianne and Margaret an absolute old bachelor, for he was on the wrong side of five and thirty; but though his face was not handsome, his countenance was sensible, and his address was particularly gentlemanlike."

@Turophiles “Did Mrs Bennet just slacken off by the time she got to the two youngest?”

Maybe she was “in the depths of despair” because they weren’t boys, so she just gave up!!

“Lizzie asks her father to stop the trip, but he couldn't be bothered.”

Mr Bennet wanted peace and quiet and mistakably thought Lydia would be safe.

"We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to Brighton".

@whatwouldlilacerullodo “Everyone failed Lydia, also by not educating her properly.”

The Bennet sisters were left to their own devices. Jane, Lizzy and Mary were more disciplined in educating themselves than Kitty and Lydia. Kitty and Lydia had more frivolous pursuits! Their parents definitely failed them.

There is but I’ve never read them. I just looked and apparently there was a new, updated (?) translation done in early noughties and it seems to get good reviews.

Due to brexit none of the bookstores send orders to UK but I’ll try to remember to pick up a copy when I’m next there!

Hopefully Marianne was happy in her marriage.

“Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband, as it had once been to Willoughby”

And poor Mary never gets any credit for this - because not only is she plain, it seems she has less natural intelligence and talent than her older sisters.

Poor Mary, she is the overlooked, plain, pedantic middle child!

"Mary had neither genius nor taste".

I hope you can get it! If you read the translation first, it might make it less tiring to read the original English version afterwards, as you'll remember it when it comes to things like the 18th Century references to clothes, carriages, livings and entails which most modern readers have to look up the first time they encounter them, even if English is their first language.

I always identified with Mary more than the others, I'd have been her had I been born 200 years earlier than I was.

We danced every dance, and Mary: none!

The Other Bennet Sister was great but uncomfortable watching - too close to home for me!

“balls "would have no charms for me—I should infinitely prefer a book" “

I haven’t watched it as I refuse to pay for a TV licence.

Mary’s got me there. I’d prefer a book to a party, as well.

Yes, but I’m not talking about about the education Lizzy describes to Lady Catherine, when she explains that they didn’t have a governess or go away to school, but were encouraged to read and had visiting masters, though ‘those who chose to be idle’ certainly could — I mean the basic reputation/sexual morality/ ‘don’t have sex until you’re married’ stuff.

Which Jane, Elizabeth and Mary seem to have imbibed from somewhere, presumably their mother, but Lydia not at all. I mean, she appears to have literally no consciousness at any point of having done anything wrong, or that she came within a hairsbreadth of wrecking her own life.

Is it simply that when Jane and Elizabeth were young, there were no older, marriageable daughters as distractions, so they got more of their mother’s focus in terms of basic sexual morals and self-preservation etc? But with Jane seven years older than Lydia and Lizzy five, by the time Lydia (and probably Kitty) were at the stage when they should have had that training, Mrs Bennet was already distracted by her eldest daughters being ‘out’ and on the marriage market?

Though I’ve always wondered why the Bennets didn’t employ a governess. On £2000 a year, a governess on c.£20 a year, plus her keep, was entirely affordable, and would probably constitute a good investment across five daughters, especially with a nervous, irritable, uninformed mother not best fitted for teaching the basics of manners and behaviour.

I wonder if Mr Bennet was more involved when the older girls were young, perhaps still retaining some degree of affection for his wife and interest in the life he had chosen. This was probably on the wane all along and by the time Kitty and Lydia came along, had waned altogether and by that stage he'd retreated to his library, his only interest in continuing marital relations with Mrs B.being in pursuit of the elusive son to claim the entail, and having no interest in forming a relationship with his younger daughters and no influence on their education or conduct.

Another hearty recommendation for The Other Bennet Sister. Their book was imo dreadful, but the TV series exceptional.

You’re right. Lydia is absolutely oblivious to the trail of devastation she’s left in her wake, and not just for her own life, either, of course.

This is summed up, when she gets into the coach, slips and says: what a lark if i should fall and break my head!

Silly mare.

Austen speaks about bringing up your children poorly and the impact it has on your character (the Bertram sisters in Mansfield Park are a good example) but I think she also thinks of personality as being hereditary. In Persuasion Elizabeth & Mary Elliot have inherited Sir Walter's narcissism but there's no suggestion that this is the fault of their mother's parenting. IIRC Anne is described as being very similar to her mother. I think we are supposed to see Lydia to an extent as being naturally hard to govern, in conjunction with the poor parenting. Kitty is depicted slightly differently - she is led astray by Lydia's dominant personality but she benefits from different influences after Jane & Elizabeth marry.

I completely agree.

I find, even today, with a family with either a big age gap, or with several children; there’s a sort of the novelty/effort of parenting has worn off attitude.

And, when no son materialised, Mr B, just threw up his hands, plotted up in his library; and left the rest of the parenting (such as it was) to Mrs B.

I suppose that might make sense, too. He’s fond of the two eldest, particularly Elizabeth, but he treats the younger three more or less as he treats their mother — as irritating comic relief that he clearly doesn’t think is much to do with him, or anything he should do anything about.

Though I can’t see Mr Bennet giving them a lecture on the birds and the bees and keeping their knees together till they have a ring on their finger!