How Did Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Become A Christmas Story?
Jane Austen's Regency World|102 - November/December 2019
HO, HO, HO…how did Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice become a Christmas story? Devoney looser investigates
Devoney Looser 
How Did Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Become A Christmas Story?

It’s true, whether you acknowledge it or not: Pride & Prejudice (1813) is not a heartwarming Christmas novel. The word “Christmas” does appear in its pages six times, but the story is hardly fixated on yuletide cheer. (The word “Michaelmas” is also in there twice, but it is not to be confused with Seinfeld’s Festivus.) Lest you get carried away by that number six, you should know that Mansfield Park (1814) uses the word “Easter” twelve times, yet no one suggests that we should add bunny rabbits or plastic eggs to the next television or film version.

How did Pride & Prejudice get mixed up, not only with chestnuts roasting in Georgian fireplaces but also with elves and ugly sweaters? It is tempting to go with the easy answer: “commercialism”. We now have Christmas-related everything. We now have Austen-related everything. Tie a bow around both of them, and the cha-ching-ing of jingle bells seems inevitable. Austen is to Christmas as these is to fire, with or without the chestnuts.

Yet this profit-driven explanation fails to satisfy entirely. If it were true, then surely we would have Walking in Alice’s Winter Wonderland, O Little Town of Middlemarch and God Rest You Merry Little Women. Not that there is any shortage of improbable Christmas-inspired literary things. The novel Frankenstein Meets Santa (2015) ought to be proof enough of that. But the emergence in 2018 of a set of black existentialist ornaments from the novelty toy company Archie McPhee should seal the deal. One ornament features Simone de Beauvoir’s face on one side with the quote “Society cares for the individual only so far as he is profitable” on the reverse. Yes, Virginia, there is an irony.

Denne historien er fra 102 - November/December 2019-utgaven av Jane Austen's Regency World.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

Denne historien er fra 102 - November/December 2019-utgaven av Jane Austen's Regency World.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

FLERE HISTORIER FRA JANE AUSTEN'S REGENCY WORLDSe alt
How Did Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Become A Christmas Story?
Jane Austen's Regency World

How Did Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Become A Christmas Story?

HO, HO, HO…how did Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice become a Christmas story? Devoney looser investigates

time-read
8 mins  |
102 - November/December 2019
Jane's Beloved Friend
Jane Austen's Regency World

Jane's Beloved Friend

Judith Stove introduces her new biography of Anne Lefroy

time-read
4 mins  |
102 - November/December 2019
Women Of Peterloo
Jane Austen's Regency World

Women Of Peterloo

MEN WERE NOT THE ONLY ONES DEMANDING REFORM IN AUGUST 1819. MANY WOMEN CAME TO MANCHESTER FOR A DAY OF PROTEST, AND NOT ALL OF THEM MADE IT HOME, AS SUE WILKES REPORTS

time-read
8 mins  |
102 - November/December 2019
Darcy's Picture Gallery
Jane Austen's Regency World

Darcy's Picture Gallery

WHAT MIGHT ELIZABETH BENNET HAVE SEEN AS SHE WANDERED THROUGH THE CORRIDORS OF PEMBERLEY? VICTORIA C SKELLY CONSIDERS HOW THE OWNERS OF GREAT ESTATES IN JANE AUSTEN’S TIME VIEWED ART

time-read
7 mins  |
102 - November/December 2019
Austen's Festive Music
Jane Austen's Regency World

Austen's Festive Music

A LARGE COLLECTION OF MUSIC WRITTEN OUT BY JANE AUSTEN REVEALS SOME POPULAR NURSERY RHYMES AND HER CHRISTMAS FAVOURITES, WRITES ROS OSWALD. PICTURES FROM THE NOVELS, BY CE BROCK

time-read
7 mins  |
102 - November/December 2019
Candour And Comfort
Jane Austen's Regency World

Candour And Comfort

Female friendships outside the family group rarely feature in Jane Austen’s fiction, yet she and Cassandra enjoyed a close relationship with the three youngest daughters of many down park, Hampshire as Hazel Jones explores 

time-read
6 mins  |
89 - September/October 2017
Keeping The Faith
Jane Austen's Regency World

Keeping The Faith

Quakers, Catholics and Methodists fared badly compared with Anglicans in the Christian Britain of a Jane Austen’s time, writes Penelope Friday

time-read
6 mins  |
89 - September/October 2017
Austen In Australia
Jane Austen's Regency World

Austen In Australia

The Jane Austen society of Australia

time-read
4 mins  |
89 - September/October 2017
Culture Club
Jane Austen's Regency World

Culture Club

The Jane Austen society of the UK 

time-read
3 mins  |
89 - September/October 2017
Last Days In Winchester
Jane Austen's Regency World

Last Days In Winchester

Jane Austen left Chawton on may 24, 1817, to seek medical help in the nearby city of Winchester. Elizabeth Jane Timms traces those final weeks of her life. line drawings by Ellen Hill c1901

time-read
5 mins  |
88 – July/August 2017