The five Bennet sisters will be left without a home or income when their father dies, and their mother is very anxious to get them well married, eyeing up any single man with that in mind. Of the sisters, Jane is the most beautiful and good-natured, Elizabeth is witty and spirited, Mary is plain, Kitty silly and Lydia, barely sixteen, is wild, sexually precocious and self-willed. Their parents are ill-matched, Mrs Bennet being embarrassingly foolish, and Mr Bennet sardonic, shutting himself in his study and fond only of his two eldest daughters.<br> Two rich young men come into the neighbourhood, Mr Bingley, who appears to fall in love with Jane, and his haughty friend Mr Darcy, who first scorns but then finds himself drawn to Elizabeth. Elizabeth has taken against him, however, a prejudice confirmed when a new friend, George Wickham, spreads stories about Darcy's double dealing. Elizabeth now receives an unwelcome proposal from her pompous cousin, Mr Collins, and is horrified when three days later he is accepted by her unromantic friend, Charlotte Lucas, who fears being left an 'old maid'. Darcy and Bingley leave the neighbourhood, leaving an unhappy Jane behind them, and Elizabeth feels her faith in human nature undermined.