Excerpt From Grand Pursuit, by Sylvia Nasar

The idea that humanity could turn tables on economic necessity—mastering rather than being enslaved by material circumstances—is so new that. Consider the world of Georgian opulence that the author of Pride and Prejudice inhabited. A citizen of a country whose wealth "excited the wonder, the astonishment, and perhaps the envy of the world" her life coincided with the triumphs over superstition, ignorance, and tyranny we call the European Enlightenment. She was born into the "middle ranks" of English society when "middle" meant the opposite of average or typical. Compared to Mr. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice or even the unfortunate Ms. Dashwoods in Sense and Sensibility , the Austens were quite impecunious. Nonetheless, their income of £210 a year exceeded that of 95 percent of English families at the time.