Two hundred years ago today, Jane Austen published Pride and Prejudice, the classic tale of Elizabeth Bennett. Though the book has now sold more than 20 million copies worldwide, Austen (above) received £110 for the copyright from publisher T. Egerton, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
While Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813, just four years before Austen’s death, she lives on in TED Talks. Here, five speakers who’ve mentioned Austen on stage:
- Alain de Botton: Atheism 2.0
“And at the end of my talk, you would all stand up and you would go, ‘Thank you Plato, thank you Shakespeare, thank you Jane Austen.’”
. - Beeban Kidron: The shared wonder of film
“Consider Citizen Kane as valuable as Jane Austen. Agree that Boyz n the Hood is like Tennyson.”
. - David Brooks: The social animal
“So they’ve got these furry 160-pound dogs — all look like velociraptors, all named after Jane Austen characters.”
. - Denis Dutton: A Darwinian theory of beauty
“A stunning match-winning goal in a World Cup soccer match, Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night,’ a Jane Austen novel, Fred Astaire dancing across the screen.”
. - Liz Coleman’s call to reinvent liberal arts education
“You may think you know what is going on in that Jane Austen novel — that is, until your first encounter with postmodern deconstructionism.”