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in Pride and Prejudice, more than in any of her other novels, Austen uses card games in order to introduce and develop characters, to foreshadow forthcoming events in light of the traits various card games reveal in those who play them (or abstain from playing them), and to consider interesting relationships between characters.1 Although card games perform all of these functions throughout the novel, it is useful to consider the various card games that occur in the novel in the context of where they occur because card games primarily perform one of these functions in each of the novel’s major settings. In the words of Alistair M. Duckworth, “the particular games chosen [are] fitted to the families that play them” (283). The narrative is framed by two sets of card games played at Longbourn, a site of courtship and, ultimately, engagement.2 Within that frame, the card games played at Netherfield primarily promote the development of the novel’s main characters; those played at Meryton primarily foreshadow (albeit dimly) the elopement of Lydia and Mr. Wickham; and the card games played at Rosings juxtapose various characters in a way that emphasizes the importance of social and familial relationships in the novel.
Austen uses the first set of games played at Longbourn primarily to introduce Jane and Mr. Bingley to each other and to the reader, but the reader learns from these games a fair amount about Elizabeth as well. Elizabeth makes the first allusion to card games in the novel when she and Charlotte discuss the growing relationship between Jane and Mr. Bingley in the context of these games. Charlotte asserts that Jane should secure an engagement from Mr. Bingley as soon as possible, but Elizabeth says that Jane and Mr. Bingley have not interacted “‘enough to make her understand his character’” (22).3 Charlotte notes that “‘four evenings have been . . . spent together—and four evenings may do a great deal’” (22). Elizabeth replies, “‘Yes; these four evenings have enabled them to ascertain that they both like Vingt-un better than Commerce; but with respect to any other leading characteristic, I do not imagine that much has been unfolded’” (22-23). Because Charlotte quickly changes the subject, it is easy to underestimate the importance of this conversation, but it is surely no accident that the first allusion to card games in the novel comes in the midst of a discussion of character. Indeed, the intimacy of Jane and Mr. Bingley is based largely on these initial affections.
Elizabeth’s reference to cards—somewhat ironically—also suggests the way card games reveal character. Although she deems it unimportant that Jane and Mr. Bingley both prefer the relatively simple Vingt-un (modern-day blackjack) to the more complicated Commerce (rather like modern-day poker), Elizabeth herself points out that Jane is not one to act “‘by design’” (22), calling into question her implication that card games are not revelatory of character.4 Of course, considering that Jane and Mr. Bingley both prefer a rather simple game of luck to a more complicated game of skill, it is unlikely that either analyzes the other’s character in respect to card games; nevertheless, Elizabeth is doing the very thing that she implies Jane and Mr. Bingley are incapable of doing (i.e., connecting one’s character to the card games he or she prefers), indicating that card games can tell a reader a great deal about the characters who play them—even if that reader is another character, like Elizabeth, and even if an awareness of the relationships between card games and the people who play them may be subconscious.
At Netherfield, Austen further develops these characters, and Mr. Darcy’s as well, by means of two card games that foreshadow the estrangement of the couples and reveal Elizabeth’s and Mr. Darcy’s shared tendency to avoid games of chance. Duckworth argues that “the social-climbing Bingleys at Netherfield play games that recall their origins in trade and announce their aspirations: commerce, piquet, loo, vingt-un” (283). Elizabeth, during her first evening at Netherfield, finds “the whole party at loo” but when invited to join the game says she will read a book instead (37). Mr. Hurst, whom the narrator previously described as one “who live[s] only to eat, drink, and play at cards” (35), asks Elizabeth, “‘Do you prefer reading to cards? . . . [T]hat is rather singular’” (37). Mr. Hurst is surely not aware of his pun, but the word he uses to mean “odd” emphasizes Elizabeth’s choice of isolation over camaraderie here. Miss Bingley then alleges that Elizabeth “‘despises cards’” and finds pleasure only in reading, but Elizabeth denies this allegation (37). Ultimately, Elizabeth is drawn to the game—moving “near the card-table . . . to observe the game” (38, emphasis mine)—but as a spectator rather than a player. In fact, it seems to be the discussion of Mr. Darcy’s estate (Miss Bingley’s praise of the library), rather than the game of cards itself that induces Elizabeth to put down her book and observe the game. Because loo is a round game (i.e., a game that can be played by many players), it seems that the only reason Elizabeth does not join the game is that she “suspect[s] them to be playing high” (37). Mary Margaret Benson explains that “[a]ll round games are gambling games” (96). Kirstin Olsen suggests that the stakes in this game were unlimited: “In unlimited loo, the [stake] was equal to that already in the pool, which meant that if there were successive hands where many players opted to compete, the pool [and the stake] could grow geometrically” (96).
Elizabeth never initiates a card game, plays only when she is obligated to do so, and—even if she does not despise cards, as Miss Bingley claims—seemingly prefers to “observe the game” rather than engage in the risks associated with even casual card-playing. This tendency to observe rather than engage is quite indicative of her character: she consistently seeks to determine as much as she can about a situation before she becoming involved in it. The notable exception to this rule is her interest in Wickham, whom she regrettably assumes to be an upstanding gentleman—even after playing cards with him, as she does as Meryton.
Interestingly, Mr. Darcy also tends not to engage in risky enterprises, like card games, suggesting to the reader that Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy have more in common than they initially realize. The next day at Netherfield “passed much as the day before had done. . . . The loo table, however, did not appear” (47). Because Mr. Darcy, who is writing, is the only person who is clearly unable—or unwilling—to play cards on this occasion, it seems that the loo table does not make an appearance this day because he, like Elizabeth, avoids playing cards. Indeed, the following day Mr. Hurst “remind[s] his sister-in-law of the card-table—but in vain. She had obtained private intelligence that Mr. Darcy did not wish for cards” (54). Consequently, on this second day at Netherfield, Mr. Hurst and Mr. Bingley play piquet (a two-player game), to the exclusion of Mrs. Hurst (47), an exclusion that reflects the status of the Hursts’ marriage: Mr. Hurst lives for food, drink, and cards, but not for his wife.5 By pairing Mr. Bingley with Mr. Hurst, Austen emphasizes both Mr. Bingley’s bachelorhood and the fact that Jane is sick upstairs; Mr. Hurst’s marriage is a bad one, and (by reflection) Mr. Bingley’s prospects of a marriage with Jane seem to be dimming. The exchange of loo for piquet also foreshadows the forthcoming dissolution of the group and subsequent estrangement of the novel’s main couples, for Elizabeth is in the process of planning her and Jane’s return home.
The card games at Meryton similarly foreshadow forthcoming events, albeit in a rather veiled way, for here the reader sees the seeds of an improper relationship between Lydia and Mr. Wickham. This scene is notably opaque precisely because Mr. Wickham is a deceptive character. Consequently, in addition to introducing the relationship between Lydia and Mr. Wickham, the card games played at Meryton demonstrate that Elizabeth is a less perfect judge of character than she assumes. Here, Mr. Collins sits down with Mrs. Phillips to play whist, a game for four players, with tricks taken by partners who remained partners for the duration of the game” (Olsen 89). Olsen says, “whist, a forerunner of bridge with very similar rules, was thought of as the quintessential thinker’s game” (96). Mr. Collins, therefore, is clearly not a thinker, for he loses every point in this whist game (83). Nevertheless, he says of his losses, “‘when persons sit down to a card table, they must take their chance of these things’” (83), indicating either an interesting maturity or a startling immaturity concerning games of chance.6 In apparent contrast to Mr. Collins, “Mr. Wickham did not play at whist” (76). Because the narrator makes this statement immediately after describing only two players sitting down to whist, when the game requires four, it seems that Mr. Wickham consciously avoids the whist table; perhaps he is actively trying to hide that he is a gambler.
Instead of playing whist, Mr. Wickham is “received at the other table between Elizabeth and Lydia” (76), where he casually plays lottery tickets. Olsen argues that, because “[a]n 1859 edition of Hoyle gives three different ways to play, [it] is impossible to tell which set of rules was used in the Meryton game,” but “‘winning’ cards were . . . selected randomly, and whoever held the specified cards received a prize. It was, in other words, a game of pure luck” (98). That Lydia is “extremely fond of lottery tickets” (76) at Meryton more clearly reveals her character than Mr. Wickham’s deceptive abstinence from the game of whist does his, for she “soon grew too much interested in the game, too eager in making bets and exclaiming after prizes, to have attention for any one in particular” (76-77). The simplicity of lottery tickets and Lydia’s interest in this game to the exclusion of her concern for others reveals her simplicity and selfishness. Furthermore, it foreshadows her willingness to attach herself to “bets and . . . prizes” rather than “anyone in particular” (even in marriage), so it is surely not accidental that Mr. Wickham is sitting next to Lydia while the reader is subtly introduced to these faults in her character. Finally, Lydia’s “talk[ing] incessantly of lottery tickets, of the fish she had lost and the fish she had won” (84) on the way home is not unlike the way in which she eventually desires “to hear herself called ‘Mrs. Wickham’ . . . and . . . to shew her ring and boast of being married” (317). Thus, even though the full extent of Lydia’s vice is muted in this passage, the reader who is familiar with the whole of the novel can see the seeds of impropriety in this relatively early scene in which Lydia and Mr. Wickham first make each other’s acquaintance.
While Lydia’s vice is muted in this passage, Wickham’s is almost completely stifled. If Benson is correct when she suggests that card-players sometimes gambled with “fish” (like modern-day poker chips) instead of money (98), it may be that while the whist-players were wagering real money, those playing lottery tickets were merely playing for fun. Indeed, Lydia is excited by the fish and prizes—not the money—that she wins playing lottery tickets on this occasion (76-77, 84).7 Thus, because Mr. Wickham plays lottery tickets rather than whist at Meryton, the reader is at risk of incorrectly assuming that he is uninterested in gambling and truly interested in Elizabeth. Indeed, Elizabeth herself makes such an assumption. After Mr. Wickham and Lydia are discovered by Darcy in London, though, it becomes clear that Mr. Wickham’s main motive for leaving Brighton has been to get away from his “‘debts of honour, which were very pressing’” (298). Jane notably reacts to the details of Wickham’s character “with horror”: “‘A gamester! . . . This is wholly unexpected. I had not an idea of it’” (298). Even an astute reader is likely as surprised as Jane, for Wickham is scarcely associated with gambling at Meryton, where, “[a]llowing for the common demands of the game” (77), he plays lottery tickets with relative disinterest, focusing instead on obtaining Elizabeth’s pity and admiration by slandering Mr. Darcy and misrepresenting his own biography. Thus, there is little to no indication that Wickham is a gambler until the fullness of his irresponsibility is revealed, and the earliest foreshadowing that Wickham is a gambler is obscure: “on his quitting Derbyshire, he had left many debts behind him” (265). Thus, although it is unlikely that the reader will initially perceive Wickham’s duplicity at Meryton, the reader who looks back upon this scene will clearly see Wickham’s deceptiveness at work.
Although it seems that Mr. Wickham intends to deceive Elizabeth and others by playing lottery tickets rather than whist at Meryton, his play at lottery tickets reveals his true character. That is to say, lottery tickets fits Mr. Wickham better than does whist because, like Mr. Collins, he proves to be a poor thinker. Although he tries to be crafty in his relationship with Elizabeth, he cannot maintain his deceit. Moreover, his gambling debts themselves suggest that he tends to lose at cards. Thus, although Mr. Wickham may see himself as an excellent player of both cards and deceptions, his failures in both of these kinds of gambling eventually catch up with him. Although the reader realizes only much later in the novel that Mr. Wickham’s choice of card games at Meryton was deceptive, Austen’s casting him as a player of lottery tickets reveals relatively early in the novel that he, like Lydia, is too impulsive to be very clever.
At Rosings, Austen portrays two parallel card games that primarily juxtapose various characters in light of their social status and familial relationships. On one such occasion, while visiting Charlotte, Elizabeth is invited to dinner at Rosings, and, after tea, “Lady Catherine, Sir William, and Mr. and Mrs. Collins sat down to quadrille” (166). Because quadrille had fallen out of fashion by the end of the eighteenth century (OED), Lady Catherine’s preference for it may reflect her resistance to novelty and her concern with status. David Selwyn suggests that “[t]he stifling formality of evenings with Lady Catherine . . . is conveyed as much as anything by the ceaseless playing of quadrille” (268). Similarly, Lady Catherine likely considers quadrille to be a prestigious game, for “[i]ts rules seemed deliberately designed to foil the beginner” (Olsen 91). Selwyn explains that “[q]uadrille is a difficult game with an irregular ranking of cards, an auction for principal player and a complicated system of settlements; having plenty of scope for mistakes, it requires concentration to play well” (269). Olsen also says that quadrille “seems to have been especially popular with women,” and that “the constantly shifting alliances, the potentially high stakes, and the secrecy were what made it appealing to its devotees” (95).
Significantly, Lady Catherine’s preference for quadrille requires that she have three partners. Mr. Collins, of course, misunderstands her need for a fourth player to be indicative of her favor (66). Alas, Lady Catherine only condescends to interact with those of a lower social status when she has occasion to make particular use of them, and Mr. Collins is too obtuse to realize that he is being used—even though Elizabeth recognizes early on that Mr. Collins is invited to play quadrille at Rosings only “in the absence of more eligible visitors” (88). The quadrille game at which Elizabeth is present emphasizes Lady Catherine’s vanity, for she does most of the talking, “stating the mistakes of the three others, or relating some anecdote of herself” (166).8 This game also emphasizes Mr. Collin’s groveling: “Mr. Collins was employed in agreeing to every thing her Ladyship said, thanking her for every fish he won, and apologising if he thought he won too many” (166). Finally, the game underscores for the the reader an element of Sir William’s character: “Sir William did not say much. He was storing his memory with anecdotes and noble names” (166).
Meanwhile, “as Miss De Bourgh chose to play at cassino, the two girls had the honour of assisting Mrs. Jenkinson to make up her party” (166), and the similarities and differences between the quadrille game and the cassino game parallel those between Lady Catherine and Miss De Bourgh. Because cassino does not require four players, one wonders why Miss De Bourgh needs three other people to “make up her party”: there is obvious irony in the narrator’s “the two girls had the honour of assisting” (italics mine). Even though the game she prefers does not require four players, Miss De Bourgh mimics Lady Catherine in her coercion of partners. Miss De Bourgh, however, does not imitate Lady Catherine in her self-praise: “Their table was superlatively stupid. Scarcely a syllable was uttered that did not relate to the game” (166). Not only is the table quiet, but there may be a pun on the word “stupid” here, implying that Miss De Bourgh is not as intelligent as Lady Catherine.9 Thus, though apparently quieter, Miss De Bourgh, a player of the much simpler cassino, is very similar to her mother—even if “[t]here was neither in figure nor face, any likeness between the ladies” (162)—and seems to be emulating her mother, consciously or otherwise.
These card games give Austen an opportunity to compare characters, particularly parents and children (and therefore subtly to probe questions such as nature versus nurture). Indeed, Miss De Bourgh’s table has a groveler to parallel Mr. Collins: Mrs. Jenkinson. She breaks the “superlatively stupid” silence at the cassino table to express “her fears of Miss De Bourgh’s being too hot or too cold, or having too much or too little light” (166). Austen may be implying that Maria Lucas performs her father’s role at the cassino table, especially considering the juxtaposition of the two on their way to visit Charlotte: “Sir William Lucas, and his daughter Maria, a good humoured girl, but as empty-headed as himself, had nothing to say that could be worth hearing” (152). Thus, two simple games of cards in Austen’s hands become an occasion for social commentary. As Benson notes, “[i]n general, one can say that people behave in the games as they behave in their own real world” (98).
Indeed, Austen also uses these card games to critique Lady Catherine’s sense of social hierarchy. What these simultaneous card games emphatically have in common is that the hostesses initiate them, decide upon what game will be played, and, subsequently, end them: “When Lady Catherine and her daughter had played as long as they chose, the tables were broke up, the carriage was offered to Mrs. Collins, gratefully accepted, and immediately ordered (166). Benson says, “Like the domestic society of the novels themselves, the card table imposes a closed, known society, dictated by defined well-known rules” (98). It is odd that Lady Catherine ends this game of quadrille at will, then, for Olsen claims that it was common practice for players to “[agree] on the number of ‘tours’ to be played, a tour equaling four hands, or one turn for each player to be dealer. Ten tours, or forty hands, was typical” (93). Thus, Lady Catherine may see her status as an excuse to break not only the conventions of card-playing, but also the larger social conventions of which they are a subset. In other words, one might assume that men and women could approach a card table as equals, abiding by the rules, conventions, and obligations of the game, but at Rosings, social hierarchy—or Lady Catherine herself—trumps social obligation.
Back at Longbourn, Austen uses card games both as a means of simple plotting and to complete the narrative frame, in which the novel’s main couples meet and ultimately become engaged. As the novel approaches its denouement, Elizabeth wishes to carry on a relatively private conversation with Mr. Darcy, but various social obligations repeatedly keep them separated. On one such occasion, Mr. Darcy falls victim to Mrs. Bennet’s “rapacity for whist players,” leaving Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy “confined for the evening at different tables” (342). As mentioned above, Mr. Darcy previously seems to avoid playing cards, so his being cast as a whist-player in this instance reflects not his character but Mrs. Bennet’s, whose “rapacity for whist players” is reminiscent of, but clearly more forgivable than, Lady Catherine’s interest in quadrille players. Mr. Darcy’s condescending to play whist on this occasion does, however, suggest that, although he is not particularly interested in the game, even a socially-elevated man like him is subject to social courtesies and therefore obligated to play cards with his hostess. It may even be that Mr. Darcy has learned over the course of the novel to be more respectful of those around him—particularly Elizabeth’s family, for his romantic interest in Elizabeth surely contributes to his condescension to Mrs. Bennet. Though Lady Catherine’s love of quadrille leads her to abuse her social status, Mr. Darcy’s seeming distaste for cards does not (by the end of the novel, at least) lead him to neglect his social obligations.
Just as this game of cards keeps Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy apart, a similar game of cards brings Mr. Bingley and Jane together a few days later. The narrator does not explain exactly how Mrs. Bennet arranges this card game such that Mr. Bingley and Jane eventually end up alone in the drawing room, but she makes it clear that “[Elizabeth’s] mother had been too ingenious for her” (346), “purposely [breaking] up the card party” (347) after Elizabeth leaves the room thinking “she could not be wanted to counteract her mother’s schemes” (346). In addition to playing a role in the plotting of Jane’s and Mr. Bingley’s engagement, this card game and the events surrounding it are reminiscent of the game of piquet played by Mr. Hurst and Mr. Bingley earlier in the novel. On the former occasion, the entire group was not playing loo (apparently) because Mr. Darcy was writing a letter, and on this occasion, Elizabeth is writing a letter: “Elizabeth, who had a letter to write, went into the breakfast room for that purpose soon after tea” (346). Thus, this card game simultaneously brings Jane and Mr. Bingley together and subtly parallels Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, who, as mentioned above, both tend to avoid games of chance.
Once Jane and Mr. Bingley are engaged, the narrator never mentions cards again, presumably because Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are not defined by the card games they play. Both of them play cards but, unlike their fellow characters, are not defined by them. Elizabeth’s and Mr. Darcy’s shared tendency to avoid playing cards is as indicative of their characters as Mr. Hurst’s and Mr. Wickham’s obsessions with cards are of theirs, however, for it is fitting that Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, both more free-willed and more deliberate than their fellow characters, avoid (to echo Mr. Collins) “taking their chance of things”—even in casual games of cards. But if Elizabeth’s and Mr. Darcy’s avoidance of chance is a virtue, it is also a vice. As Duckworth argues, “In Pride and Prejudice . . . card games . . . are deftly integrated into the novel’s antithetical structure so as to expose extremes of social conformity and individual freedom and to define a normative marriage of the moral self to a worthy society” (283). Indeed, as suggested above, the card table is a miniature society, and a large part of what Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy have to learn over the course of the novel is how to balance individual freedom and social conformity.
Notes
I would like to acknowledge a few people without whom this essay would never have become what it is: Jennifer Fast and Rachel Shunk, with whom I first discovered the idea for this essay; Theresa Kenney, who encouraged me to publish it; Tiffany Niebuhr, who read multiple drafts; Susan Allen Ford and an anonymous reviewer, who suggested valuable revisions; and, finally, Amanda Brumit, whose sacrifice of time spent with her husband allowed for the writing of these pages and the reading of the works cited herein.
1. A number of critics have recognized that Austen uses card games as more than scene-setting, but most (e.g., Duquette, Sheehan, and Stovel) make only passing references to the role of card games in Austen's novels. Schneider suggests that card-playing in Pride and Prejudice, like dancing in Austen's other novels, is an image of courtship. Benson argues that “[i]n general, the games in Pride and Prejudice are used to provide further illumination of character, or an excuse for satire, or both” (99). The entry on “Cards” in Olsen’s All Things Austen: An Encyclopedia of Austen’s World provides excellent summaries of the rules of the card games played by Austen's characters, as well as some commentary on contemporary associations of certain card games with certain demographics (male/female, young/old, etc.).
2. It is unclear exactly where the “‘four evenings’” to which Charlotte refers were spent (22), so I here associate those games with the setting of Longbourn even though some of them surely were not played at the Bennets’ residence.
3. All citations of Pride and Prejudice are to the Chapman edition. Compare Jane’s “‘not acting by design’” (22) to Mr. and Mrs. Bennet’s opening conversation, in which Mrs. Bennet admits that Mr. Bingley is probably not “designing” to get married by settling at Netherfield (4).
4. Olsen explains the rules of the game:
Commerce was played with a standard fifty-two card deck, with conventional ranking and with aces either high or low. Players anted a set amount to the pool, and each was dealt three cards. A ghost hand, the widow, was dealt three cards as well. The dealer could exchange his hand for the widow’s, and after he had decided whether to exchange or not, players in clockwise rotation opted to exchange a card with one from the widow’s hand or not. Exchanges continued until two players had knocked on the table to indicate that they were satisfied with their hands. All hands were then revealed, and the best won the pool. (106)
5. Olsen says, “[p]iquet (pronounced ‘picket’) was, like loo, a French import, but it had been known in England, by one name or another, for centuries before Austen’s birth. . . . Like quadrille, it was played with a nonstandard deck: thirty-two cards, the six through deuce of each suit being first removed from the pack. Aces were worth 11 points, face cards 10, the others their numerical value” (100-01). Players took turns dealing twelve-card hands, leaving an eight-card draw pile, and, after cards from the player’s hands were exchanged with cards from the draw pile, players earned points for sets and sequences (Olsen 101). Because the game was played until one of the players scored one hundred points, “players often used counters or a board, like a cribbage board, to mark their relative scores” (102).
6. Upon reading a draft of this paper, Theresa Kenney commented that Mr. Collins may be “pretending to be unaffected.”
7. Selwyn similarly assumes that the fish Mr. Collins apologizes for winning indicate that the quadrille games at Rosings are not played for money (269). Olsen, on the other hand, claims that “[a]ll card games involved a certain amount of gambling, and players often kept track of their winnings not with actual money but with ‘fish’” (87). Because fish were like the modern poker-chip, it is easy to see how they could be either counters or a means of risk-free gambling.
8. Selwyn suggests that Lady Catherine “distracts the quadrille players” by means of her talking (269).
9. The OED entry for “stupid” confirms that this pun was possible at the time the novel was written. Indeed, in this novel Austen uses the word to mean both “quiet” (as in the above instance) and ‘unintelligent’ (see, for example, 240). Olsen explains that “[u]nlike games such as whist, quadrille, and loo, [cassino] was not a game that involved taking tricks. The point of the game was to score points by capturing cards from the center section. Captures were accomplished by equaling the value of one or more cards with cards from one’s own hand. For example, if the four face-up cards were a five, a two, a seven, and a jack, player A could use a seven from her own hand to capture either the seven or the five and the two together” (99).
Works Cited
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Ed. R. W. Chapman. 3rd ed. London: Oxford UP, 1965. Benson, Mary Margaret. “Excellently Qualified to Shine at a Round Game.” Persuasions 8 (1986): 96-100. Duckworth, Alistair M. “‘Spillikins, paper ships, riddles, conundrums, and cards’: Games in Jane Austen’s Life and Fiction.” Jane Austen: Bicentenary Essays. Ed. John Halperin. Cambridge: CUP, 1975. 279-297. Duquette, Natasha Aleksiuk. “Laughter over Tea: Jane Austen and Culinary Pedagogy.” Persuasions On-Line 29.1 (2008). Olsen, Kirstin. “Cards.” All Things Austen: An Encyclopedia of Austen’s World, Volume 1 (A-L). Westport: Greenwood, 2005. 87-107. “quadrille, n.2.” OED Online. June 2013. Oxford UP. 6 Aug. 2013. Schneider, Matthew. “Card-playing and the Marriage Gamble in Pride and Prejudice.” Dalhousie Review 73.1 (1993): 5-17. Selwyn, David. Jane Austen and Leisure. Rio Grande, OH: Hambledon, 1999. Sheehan, Colleen A. “To Govern the Winds: Dangerous Acquaintances at Mansfield Park.” Persuasions On-Line 25.1 (2004). Stovel, Nora Foster. “An Invitation to Dance and a Proposal of Marriage: Jane Austen’s Emma and Two Film Adaptations.” Persuasions On-Line 28.1 (2007). “stupid, adj. and n.” OED Online. September 2011. Oxford UP. 12 Dec. 2011.
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