More about Mary, Austen and class

Or maybe Mary isn't just a frustrated humourless failed flirt. When the family is discussing the invitation to Mr Bingley's ball, she says that she was not opposed to the idea:

'While I can have my mornings to myself,' said she, 'it is enough. - I think it no sacrifice to join occasionally in evening entertainments. Society has claims on us all; and profess myself one of those who consider intervals of recreation and amusement as desirable for every body.'

You go girl!

I feel like I've read Pride and Prejudice several times but I can't honestly remember reading it more than once which I did when I was 10 years old. It feels much more becuase but have seen two BBC productions and the 1930s movie (NOT the Keira Knightly thing) and every viewing I stop and go 'oh no, the book is different.'

Not surprisingly, when I was 10 I missed the detail that Mr Bingley made his money in trade and was therefore visting the neighbourhood shopping for a landed estate to call his own. Thackeray would have gone on about this at GREAT length whereas Jane Austen just mentions it once in the context of explaining why he suddenly rents this big country house and then takes off again.