Monica Miller was hooked from the first line of the English writer Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice – “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
“I first read it when I was a junior in high school,” said Miller, now an associate professor of English at Middle Georgia State University (MGA). “Elizabeth Bennett, the main character, is such a resonant character. Her impatience with the strictures of Georgian-era gender and class expectations were compelling to read. The sibling rivalries, embarrassing parents, and just flat-out engaging writing have drawn me back to read and re-read in the decades since. When the BBC series was first released on VHS in 1998, my friends and I stayed up until four in the morning, watching all six hours in one evening.”
So it should come as no surprise to anyone who knows Miller that she jumped on a chance to own a roof tile from Austen’s house in Hampshire, England, where the writer spent the last eight years before her death in 1817.
