A Jane Austen Education (29 page)

It was all falling together. She was by my side when I finally finished my dissertation that spring, and she was there when, miracle of miracles, I actually landed a job. It was even in Connecticut. We were going to be joining the circle of friends, the substitute family, through whom we had found each other.

And all the while, she had been meeting the important people in my life. She met my parents—the first time I had ever brought anyone home—who seemed to have trouble believing that their baby boy (I was thirty-three by that point) was finally growing up. She met my professor, who had us over for dinner and treated us like equals. She met the couple who had introduced me to the high-society crowd, who didn’t get her at all. And she became acquainted with my best friend, who really did know me better than I knew myself, because she welcomed her as the partner I had always been searching for.

That first weekend she came to Brooklyn, the visit that sealed our fate, she brought along a book, just in case there was some downtime. She knew I was a graduate student by that point, but she had no idea what I studied or whom I was writing my dissertation about. It was just the thing she happened to be reading at the time.

The book was
Pride and Prejudice.

Reader, I married her.

My first thanks go to my agent, Elyse Cheney, who encouraged me to undertake this project and provided invaluable, unstinting guidance in shaping it. Gratitude also to my editor, Ann Godoff, for giving me the freedom to find my voice, and to the staffs at Cheney Literary and Penguin Press, for all their creativity and care. Thanks as well to the friends who believed in the book along the way and who helped me believe in it, too. Two volumes were indispensable: Claire Tomalin’s biography and Deirdre Le Faye’s edition of the letters. My highest thanks go to Karl Kroeber, who started it all, and to Aleeza Jill Nussbaum, who gave me the perfect ending.