What I Learned While Reading The First Twenty Pages of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

(And, yes: this is spoileriffic. But only in regards to the first twenty pages of the book. And that’s taking into account the fact that the narrative starts on page seven.)

1. Netherfield Park is on the market because the entire “household of eighteen was slaughtered and consumed by a horde of the living dead” (7).

2. Mr. Bingley “escaped London in a chaise and four just as the strange plague broke through the Manchester line” (7).

3. Mr. Bennet is reluctant to visit Mr Bingley because of the risk to the horses on the zombie-infested highways (8).

4. Mrs. Bennet’s “nerves” date back to “the first outbreak of the strange plague in her youth.” She’s not quite as silly as she seems; in the wake of the plague of the living dead, “she sought solace in the comfort of the traditions which now seemed mere trifles to others” (8).

5. In other words, “The business of Mr. Bennet’s life was to keep his daughters alive. The business of Mrs. Bennet’s was to get them married” (9).

6. Lydia, though the youngest Bennet sister, is “also the most proficient in the art of tempting the opposite sex” (10), which is blunt but accurate.

7. Mr. Darcy is quite the catch, not just because of his handsome face and handsome fortune, but also because “of his having slaughtered more than a thousand unmentionables since the fall of Cambridge” (12).

8. Mr. Darcy knows only one other woman, apart from Lizzy, “who wielded a dagger with such skill, such grace, and deadly accuracy” (14).

9. Sir William Lucas made his fortune crafting fine burial gowns, until the arrival of the strange plague of zombies: “Few thought it worth the expense to dress the dead in finery when they would only soil it upon crawling out of their graves” (18).

10. Lizzy admires her sister Mary’s skill in battle, but “she had always found her a trifle dull in relaxed company” (19).

Why aren’t you all reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?