There's a reason Austen commands such an important place in the literary pantheon. She is a master at balancing high and low humor, ideals and irony, and passion and frivolity.

The quotations and passages in this unique, artful edition are divided into six chapters, each with an ironic Austenian twist:

On Eternal Love (& other financial matters…)
On Grand Gestures (& other gentlemanly curiosities…)
On Knowing Oneself (eventually, with great reluctance…)
On the Proper Drinking of Tea (while quietly dying inside…)
On the Appalling Nosiness of Neighbours (a thorough inquiry…)
On Novels & Women (& other such incendiaries…)

Those of you familiar with her novels will guess at which passages go where. Even without the context of the stories, the passages are a joy to read and fun introduction to those new to her work. The settings, the personalities, the thwarted romances, the averted disasters… it’s all there. 

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Re-reading Pride and Prejudice, I was struck by how efficiently Austen can both flesh out vividly human characters while ironically commenting on their flaws. She truly stands out as a narrator. She never intrudes too much, but just enough to get us laughing.

If you’ve watched any of the Pride and Prejudice movies, you might remember Mr. Bingley’s effusive line about the country ball where he says how charming everyone was. I was so used to this characterization that I was surprised when I re-read the book and saw that he didn’t say it. It’s the narrator talking about him in the past tense: "Bingley had never met with pleasanter people or prettier girls in his life; everybody had been most kind and attentive to him, there had been no formality, no stiffness; he had soon felt acquainted with all the room; and as to Miss Bennet, he could not conceive an angel more beautiful.” It’s the narrator, but the tone is pure Bingley. Austen does this all the time, winking at us between the lines.

This sharp, ironic voice came so easily to her, that it pervades her personal letters as well, and this particular quotation from a letter to her sister Cassandra is a wonderful example. 

For the illustration, I chose to pay homage to the beautiful 1894 “Peacock edition” cover, illustrated by Hugh Thomson. The peacock is replaced by a writer at her desk flinging off page after page of prose. And while it would be impractical (if not impossible) to write with a peacock quill, it was too fun of a nod to pass up. For the writing, I devised a way to incorporate Austen’s actual handwriting and words from Pride and Prejudice. 

Come on now, you didn’t think I would skip this line, did you? ;)

I was equal parts excited and terrified to illustrate one of the most famous declarations of love in the English canon. Mr. Darcy finally breaks and confesses his love to Elizabeth Bennet, and totally blows it. He’s so preoccupied with the “inferiority” of her station, that he doesn’t seem to consider the possibility that she might actually turn him down. But Elizabeth has her own faults, and all shall be well in the end. In the illustration I wanted to capture a sense of the way Darcy resists his feelings, and the inevitability of his feelings for her without being too cheesy. 

After brainstorming several other directions, I fixated on kites as a central theme, objects appropriate to the period, and the more I thought about it, the more perfect it was. Blown by the winds into each other’s path, their lines entangle against the will of the owners (they’re literally tying the knot, y’all!), and the only way to solve the problem is to come together. Inconvenience becomes inevitability. And of course, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to put a heart in the ribboned tails. I mean, if not on this line, then when?