"It is a truth universally acknowledged," wrote Jane Austen in the opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice, "that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." With this statement one of the great English novelists and most superb prose stylists of the nineteenth century established her subject: marriage. Austen's fiction dwells exclusively on social relations among the landed gentry and rural professionals of her own social class. Her wry depictions of gentlemen and gentlewomen in pursuit of fortune, romance, and love were popular in her day, and continue to be widely read and enjoyed. Her books have been adapted for film and television, and recent writers have even been inspired to attempt sequels to Austen's novels. Critics, too, have appreciated Austen's work, and call attention to the structural clarity and narrative sophistication of her best writing. In her attention to...