"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." It's the all-time champ for a reason: although Pride and Prejudice has spawned an entire industry of imitators, no one (not even Austen herself, in her other work) has equaled the decorous dance of sharp-tongued Lizzy and stiff, handsome D'Arcy through the drawing rooms and libraries of Regency England. Maybe it's because within all the wit and wooing lurk hard, dark truths about love, money and marriage — which make the romance that overlays them that much more miraculous.