Rating: WORTHY!
Edited by Stacy King
Illustrated by Po Tse
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
erratum:
p232 "...so what's the different?" should be "...so what's the difference?"
p369 'devaintArt' should be 'DeviantArt'
Since I adore Pride and Prejudice, this is really just a review of this manga presentation of it, not of the novel itself (which I also reviewed on this blog), and as far as that went, it went very far.
I confess that I was rather surprised that I got this opportunity to review another volume from UDON Entertainment after I didn't like their classic manga Les Misérables earlier this month, but I'm glad they took a chance on me again so I can offer the other side of the coin in this case. Hopefully this will serve as a thank you! And kudos to UDON!
Perhaps this is my shameless bias showing through, but I loved this one from the start (or the end - yes, I still have issues with reading backwards in an English language graphic novel!). The text was very well written, expertly précis'd down from Austen's original, but not losing an iota of meaning or import. Stacy King did a magnificent job with that, and Po Tse was every bit her equal in conveying the images to compliment and augment the text.
The novel had a light, airy feel to it, yet it didn't fail to tell the story with power and gravity (and some laughs). I particularly enjoyed the scene where Elizabeth refuses Darcy's proposal.
Of course, in my terribly biased book, nothing can supersede the performances of Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth in the BBC's 1995 TV series, but this manga I would rank second only to that - it's that good.
