Chapter 3 of Cambridge Companion 1/24

Pride and Prejudice seems as if it is going to be a very complex and interesting novel. This chapter in the Cambridge Companion confused me about Pride and Prejudice however. I have never read Pride and Prejudice, so the in depth talk about the characters did not make sense to me. I could see that the characters were very intertwined and very intriguing, but I did not understand the references they were making. This chapter also explained how Austen was as an author.  It explained that Austen was writing this novel at the same time as another one(Mansfield Park) and that they seemed to influence each other quite a bit.  It also showed how Austen incorporated other author's works into her novels and fed off of their ideas. She modeled Pride and Prejudice off of her love and knowledge of plays and used those theatrics to her advantage. Pride and Prejudice is a very famous book and Austen spent a lot of time creating it.