A new edition of Pride and Prejudice reproduces the characters’ letters to each other.
In a Jane Austen novel, the drama—confessions of love, pleas for help, realizations that your cousin is a jackass—is all in the letters. So it feels particularly fitting that Chronicle Books is releasing an edition of Pride and Prejudice that includes physical replicas of the letters its characters exchange, which provide some of the richest and most surprising revelations in the book.
Set decorator and writer Barbara Heller designed the edition, which contains reproductions of 19 letters in the style of the era down to details like the folding style, wax seal, and postmaster’s stamps. The letters appear in pockets throughout the book. Reading them feels like a somewhat voyeuristic exercise, like looking over a character’s shoulder as they try to figure out how to gossip about each other without, you know, being too obvious about it. (Except for Lydia, who everyone, without exception, agrees is the worst.)
The edition will be published by Chronicle Books this month.
