Part 53 (1/2)

It is the third edition that has here gone astray and ley and Darcy have been dining at Longbourn, we read in Mr Johnson's edition, as well as in the Haentleht he looked as if he would have answered her hopes; but alas! the ladies had crowded round the table, where Miss Bennet was taking tea, and Elizabeth pouring out the coffee

This is an ingenious little misprint; for what Miss Bennet, as one of the hostesses, was doing was not _taking_ tea, of course, but _'

7 Chapter LIV, where Jane is trying to persuade Elizabeth that she is in no danger of falling in love with Bingley again, Bentley's edition reads:--

'You are very cruel,' said her sister [ie

Elizabeth], 'you will not letme to it every moment'

'How hard it is in some cases to be believed! And how impossible in others! But why should you wish to persuade e?'

'That is a question which I hardly kno to answer'

Now, if we turn to the first three editions, we find the passage broken up as follows:--

'You are very cruel,' said her sister, 'you will not letme to it every moment'

'How hard it is in some cases to be believed! And how impossible in others!'

'But why should you wish to persuade e?'

'That is a question which I hardly kno to answer'

This is the only passage which we can correct on the authority of the author herself In a letter dated February 4, 1813, she says, referring to the first edition of _Pride and Prejudice_: 'The greatest blunder in printing is in p 220, l 3, where two sentences areto correct the mistake, Bentley's edition fell into another, and Mr Johnson was the first to break up the sentences correctly The passage should of course run:--

'You are very cruel,' said her sister, 'you will not letme to it every moment'

'How hard it is in some cases to be believed!'

'And how impossible in others!'

'But why should you wish to persuade e?'

'That is a question which I hardly kno to answer'

8 Chapter LV, when Jane's engageed, Bentley's edition, following the third edition, reads:--

Elizabeth, as left by herself, now smiled at the rapidity and ease hich an affair was finally settled, that had given them so many previous months of surprise and vexation

'Surprise' does not seem nearly so suitable a word as 'suspense,' which is found in the first and second editions

9 Chapter LV, where Jane is talking to Elizabeth about Bingley Mr