It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife — and in the quiet Hertfordshire village of Longbourn, this truth weighs heavily on Mrs. Bennet, a woman whose nerves have only one purpose and whose five unmarried daughters have only one destiny.

When word arrives that Netherfield Park has been leased by a wealthy young gentleman named Charles Bingley, Mrs. Bennet sees opportunity written in every rolling hill. Her husband, a man of dry wit and tired patience, agrees to call on the newcomer not out of enthusiasm but to end the campaign his wife has been waging since breakfast. And so the stage is set for a meeting that will alter the course of several lives, though none of them yet know it.

At the first ball of the season, Bingley proves as amiable as rumor promised, easy in conversation and quick to admire the eldest Bennet daughter, Jane, whose beauty is matched only by her gentle temperament. But it is Bingley's friend who captures the room's attention for a different reason — Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, a man of immense wealth, considerable height, and such unconcealed pride that within an hour he has offended every lady present, including Elizabeth Bennet, who overhears him declare her merely tolerable and quite beneath his notice...