Spirited Elizabeth is the second of five Bennett sisters. Their detached, sarcastic father and their giddy, excitable mother failed to produce a male heir, so their estate is entailed to their cousin, a pompous clergyman. Elizabeth clashes with the rich, haughty Mr Darcy, partly over unreliable information supplied by a charming and manipulative rogue. After a family scandal is resolved, Elizabeth relents and marries Darcy. This story, set out in around 120,000 words, sounds unremarkable, yet it conferred immortality on its author. Two hundred and fifty years after her birth, Jane Austen remains immensely popular, with enthusiastic readers around the world. She died in 1817 at the age of 41, having written six novels. She struggled to get her work published and didn’t enjoy great fame in her lifetime – though she did count the Prince Regent as an admirer. Pride and Prejudice is the most widely read and adapted of Jane Austen’s novels. It has sold over 20 million copies since its publication in 1813. On the website Goodreads it has over two and a half million five-star reviews. There are dozens of adaptations for stage and screen, including feature films in 1940 and 2005, and the popular BBC series of 1995. This version preserves much of the dialogue from the book and adds as little as possible, except for some short speeches to link some scenes. These speeches are mostly given to Mary Bennet, who is otherwise perhaps the most neglected character. This script is faithful enough to the original story that it will serve as a helpful summary for students. It can be staged with a large cast or, with a lot of doubling, a small one. You could build a complex set or have a bare stage with four or five chairs. Most crucially, although it is copyrighted, it is royalty-free. No fee for performance rights is required. The bulk of the work is by Jane Austen, and she is no longer accepting payment.