Read Pride and Prejudice by email.
Funnier than you remember from school.
Five daughters, an entailed estate, and a rich, single newcomer at Netherfield Park: the most beloved comedy of manners in the language. Elizabeth Bennet's quick wit collides with Mr. Darcy's pride in Austen's sparkling 1813 masterpiece — by turns satirical, romantic, and endlessly quotable.
Two or three minutes a day, and every installment opens with a line reminding you where you left off.
Seven months from now, you will have read Austen.
223 installments, one an email
- First published
- 1813
- Installments
- 223
- Each installment
- 2–3 min
How long it takes
- Words
- 121,657
- Reading time
- 8 hours 27 minutes
- At 5 minutes a day
- 3.5 months
- At 10 minutes a day
- 7 weeks
- At 20 minutes a day
- 4 weeks
At 240 words a minute, the average for adult silent reading. Use your own speed
Why read Pride and Prejudice?
Pride and Prejudice is the novel people mean when they say they love novels — the sharpest dialogue in English fiction, a heroine two centuries of readers have taken personally, and a plot that still structures half the romances written today.
It was, fittingly, a novel of its serial-reading age: written for readers who lived with books over weeks, not weekends. At one installment a day it recovers that rhythm — the slow revision of first impressions is the whole point, and it lands differently when Darcy has months to grow on you.
Every installment ends at a natural break, never mid-scene, and opens with a one-line “Previously” recap. Sixty-one chapters become 224 daily visits to Longbourn.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to read Pride and Prejudice?
About nine hours straight through (121,657 words at a typical pace). By email, it's 223 daily installments of 2–3 minutes — finished in about seven and a half months, the way Austen's first readers lived with it.
Is Pride and Prejudice hard to read?
The prose is 1813, but it's the friendliest 1813 there is — Austen's sentences are precise, ironic, and built to be understood. The only real adjustment is pace, and daily installments handle that for you.
I've seen the adaptations. Is the book worth it?
The adaptations keep the plot and lose the narrator — and the narrator is the best thing in it. The running ironic commentary is what no film can carry.
Which edition is this?
The Standard Ebooks edition: the public-domain text, carefully proofed and beautifully typeset.
How does it arrive?
One email a day at the hour you pick, with a recap at the top so you never lose the thread. Free. Pause or unsubscribe from any installment.
Standard Ebooks edition, public domain. Texts from Standard Ebooks and Project Gutenberg editions. Not affiliated with either.