pplpod

Elizabeth is still shaken by Lady Catherine's visit when her father calls her into the library to share something too funny to keep. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 57 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which Mr. Bennet reads aloud the one letter guaranteed to torture his favorite daughter, and never suspects a word of it is true. Mr. Collins writes to congratulate the fami...

A chaise and four sweeps up the Longbourn drive one morning, carrying a visitor nobody invited. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 56 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: the confrontation in the wilderness, where Lady Catherine de Bourgh comes to extract a promise and meets the one person in England who will not give it. Her ladyship has heard a report of a most alarming nature, t...

Darcy goes up to London, Bingley keeps coming to Longbourn, and Mrs. Bennet clears the field with all the subtlety she possesses, which is none. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 55 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which ten months of misunderstanding end in five minutes of plain speaking. The campaign of contrived absences is excruciating: winks Kitty cannot interpret, err...

A dinner party can be a battlefield where nobody moves. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 54 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which Mrs. Bennet's table plan does what Lady Catherine never could: it keeps Darcy and Elizabeth entirely apart for an evening. Bingley is seated by Jane, where old habits resume so visibly that Elizabeth stops worrying about that courtship entirely...

The Wickhams leave for Newcastle, Mrs. Bennet laments, and then Meryton's oldest rumor comes back to life. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 53 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which Netherfield opens its shutters, and its master rides into the Longbourn drawing-room with the last person anyone expected at his side. Mr. Bingley is coming down for a few weeks' shooting, and...

Mrs. Gardiner's answer comes by return of post, and it is everything. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 52 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the chapter that quietly rewrites the whole Lydia affair: the family's rescue was not the family's doing. It was Darcy who found the runaways, through the purchasable memory of Mrs. Younge; Darcy who argued with Lydia, who would not leave,...

The wedding day comes, and the bride arrives at Longbourn entirely delighted with herself. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 51 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which the Wickhams pay their family visit and sixteen-year-old Lydia, incapable of keeping anything, mislays the most important secret in the novel. Shame was expected somewhere in the party and appears nowhere: Lyd...

The relief lasts about a day before the accounting starts. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 50 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a chapter of reckonings: a father counting money he never saved, a mother planning houses, and Elizabeth counting a loss she can finally see whole. Mr. Bennet, who often wished he had laid by an annual sum instead of spending his whole income, now fe...

Two days after Mr. Bennet's return, an express arrives from Gracechurch Street, and Jane and Elizabeth run through the grounds to find their father. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 49 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which the fugitives are discovered at last and the rescue turns out to have a price nobody will name. Mr. Gardiner writes that Lydia and Wickham are found, u...

Days pass, the post brings nothing, and then it brings Mr. Collins. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 48 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which the search in London stalls, the neighborhood enjoys the scandal, and the family receives the most breathtakingly unhelpful condolence letter ever written. Mr. Collins writes to sympathize, and no enemy could have done it better: th...

A day and a night on the road give everyone time to hope, and Mr. Gardiner uses all of it. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 47 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which the travellers reason their way toward comfort, and Longbourn takes it away again at the front door. Surely, argues her uncle, Wickham would never risk an elopement with no marriage in view; the temptation is...

The post has been slow, and now Elizabeth knows why: two letters from Jane arrive at once, the first misdirected by a badly written address. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 46 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the hinge on which the third volume turns, and the worst hour of Elizabeth's life to date. The first letter's postscript breaks the calm: Lydia has gone off from Bright...

Courtesy requires that a visit be returned, so Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner call on Miss Darcy at Pemberley. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 45 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a drawing-room skirmish in which the only person fighting is the one with the least to win. Georgiana receives them with shy civility, Mrs. Annesley keeps the conversation breathing, and Caroline Bingl...

Elizabeth expected the introduction some day soon. She did not expect it before lunch. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 44 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which Georgiana Darcy is brought to the Lambton inn the very morning she reaches Pemberley, and the Gardiners begin drawing conclusions. Georgiana proves the opposite of her reputation: not proud but painfully shy, tall...

The road climbs through Pemberley Woods, the trees break, and there it is. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 43 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the Pemberley chapter, in which Elizabeth tours the home of the man she refused and then, against every assurance, meets him on his own lawn. The house is handsome without being showy, the grounds beautiful without artifice, and Eliza...

Before the summer journey begins, Austen pauses for the novel's most unsparing page. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 42 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which opens with the truth about the Bennet marriage and closes at the gates of the estate that will change everything. Captivated in youth by beauty and the appearance of good humour, Mr. Bennet married a woman whose weak u...

The regiment's last week in Meryton is a season of mourning for Kitty and Lydia, until an invitation changes everything for exactly one of them. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 41 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which Lydia gets her Brighton after all and Elizabeth loses the argument that mattered most. Mrs. Forster, the colonel's young wife, invites Lydia as her particu...

Elizabeth has carried it long enough. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 40 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which the whole story of Kent, or almost the whole story, finally gets an audience, and the sisters make a decision about Mr. Wickham that they will come to regret. Jane's astonishment at the proposal is soon overtaken by her tenderness: sorry for Darcy's disappointme...

The journey home ends at an inn where the welcome party has been shopping. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 39 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which Kitty and Lydia meet their sisters with a table of cold meat, a hideous new bonnet, and the news that will shape the rest of the novel. Lydia is in the highest spirits: she has treated everyone to lunch, though the others mus...

Six weeks in Kent end the way they began: with Mr. Collins explaining how fortunate everyone is. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 38 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a departure chapter in which the goodbyes are comic, the carriage is punctual, and the secrets ride home with Elizabeth. Mr. Collins devotes breakfast to ceremony, trusting his cousin will carry away a favourable...

The gentlemen leave Rosings, and Lady Catherine finds the parsonage party sadly dull without them. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 37 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a quiet chapter in which nothing happens except inside Elizabeth, where everything does. Her ladyship, missing her nephews, presses the visitors to stay another fortnight and manages their travel arrangements d...

A letter can be refused a first reading, but not a second, or a tenth. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 36 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which Elizabeth walks the lane for two hours with Mr. Darcy's letter and argues herself, sentence by sentence, out of everything she was sure of. She begins determined to disbelieve, reading with a strong prejudice against every line....

Elizabeth takes her morning walk expecting solitude and meets Mr. Darcy at the edge of the park, holding an envelope. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 35 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which belongs almost entirely to a single document: the letter that answers every charge she threw at him the night before. He asks only that she read it, and the chapter gives it to us whole...

Alone at the parsonage, rereading Jane's letters and finding fresh reasons for anger in every line, Elizabeth hears the doorbell. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 34 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: the first proposal, the great collision at the center of the novel. Mr. Darcy walks in, paces the room, and can hold it no longer. "In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My fe...

Elizabeth keeps meeting Mr. Darcy on her favourite walk, which is odd, since she told him it was her favourite walk. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 33 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which a pleasant stroll with the wrong cousin hands Elizabeth the missing piece of the Netherfield story. Colonel Fitzwilliam, agreeable as ever, falls in beside her in the park and talks w...