"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife". So begins Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's perfect comedy of manners - one of the most popular novels of all time - that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues.