PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

THE COZY VERSION

When the eligible Mr. Bingley moves into Netherfield Park, all talk turns to whom he will marry. Even the Bennet sisters, Jane and Elizabeth, are caught up in the speculation. At the ball in Meryton where they first meet, Mr. Bingley, smitten, dances with Jane twice, but his good friend Mr. Darcy will have nothing to do with Elizabeth—or anyone, for that matter. Elizabeth decides Mr. Darcy is a snob.

One day, on her way to dine with Mr. Bingley, Jane gets caught in the rain and falls ill, forcing her to stay at Netherfield. Eager to care for her sister, Elizabeth tromps through muddy fields and arrives looking a mess. Far from turning up his nose, Mr. Darcy is struck by her gumption, as well as her wit and her charm. Soon he offers his hand in marriage, but Elizabeth, shocked, turns him down cold.

The next day, Mr. Darcy hands Elizabeth a letter. In it, he owns up to his behavior, and Elizabeth feels torn, wondering if she has judged him too quickly. A few months later, after Mr. Bingley and Jane are engaged, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth go walking. When he tells her his offer of marriage still stands, she confesses her feelings have changed. Soon wedding bells ring for everyone!

STORY TIME

Cozy Classics uses a simple one word/one image format to help babies and toddlers build vocabulary and learn everyday concepts such as body parts, emotions, animals, relationships, actions, and opposites. However, Cozy Classics organizes everyday words in a more unique way: through story. By putting words in the context of a story, our books help children find further meaning through a growing sense of narrative.

As children get older, parents can expand on the stories in ever more elaborate ways. If you need a little help, just use the brief synopsis on the back of each book or the longer synopses (the Cozy version) above. But there’s no right or wrong way to read Cozy Classics. Use the words and images as prompts to invent stories of your own and encourage your children to do the same.

Parents can enliven their storytelling with quotations from the originals. Below are some of our favorites from Pride and Prejudice that go well with “the Cozy version.” Quotations can lead to whole passages until one day children are enthralled by the richest versions of all: the classics themselves.

Quotations from Pride and Prejudice

• “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

• “‘They have none of them much to recommend them,’ replied [Mr. Bennet]; ‘they are all silly and ignorant, like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters.’”

• “‘You are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room,’ said Mr. Darcy, looking at the eldest Miss Bennet. “‘Oh, she is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld!’”

• “‘She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.’”

• “‘MY DEAREST LIZZY— I find myself very unwell this morning, which, I suppose, is to be imputed to my getting wet through yesterday. My kind friends will not hear of my returning home till I am better.’”

• “Elizabeth continued her walk alone, crossing field after field at a quick pace, jumping over stiles and springing over puddles with impatient activity, and finding herself at last within view of the house, with weary ankles, dirty stockings, and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise.”

• “‘In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.’”

• “‘I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.’”

• “Be not alarmed, madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments or renewal of those offers which were last night so disgusting to you. I write without any intention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten.”

• “She read with an eagerness which hardly left her power of comprehension, and from impatience of knowing what the next sentence might bring, was incapable of attending to the sense of the one before her eyes.”

• “Elizabeth feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand, that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure, his present assurances.”

• “Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters. With what delighted pride she afterwards visited Mrs. Bingley, and talked of Mrs. Darcy, may be guessed.”