Lori Smith, proprietor of the Jane Austen Quote of the Day blog and author of the upcoming book A Walk With Jane Austen, e-mailed us earlier this week with a question that surprised us not a little. She wanted to post the famous line from Pride and Prejudice, “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours and laugh at them in our turn?” on the quote blog, but when she checked her paperback Signet edition, it had “For what do we live, but to make sport of our neighbours…”

Lori checked the Molland’s e-text of P&P, which has the “for” quote. She then e-mailed the Editrix, perplexed as to which was correct. We were at le travail du journée, but keep paperback copies of several of the novels there; the P&P is a Signet edition, and darned if it didn’t say “of.” Remembering the quote as “for,” which a check of the e-book version we have with us at all times confirmed, and not having immediate recourse to our Chapmans, we telephoned a Janeite friend who was at home and asked her to consult her Oxford Illustrated edition. Chapman, naturally, has “for,” and a crisis of Western civilization was averted. Even without our recall of the line–one of our favorites in the book–the “of” version doesn’t even make sense. Let’s parse:

Part the first: “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours…”

Part the second: “…and laugh at them in our turn?”

“Make sport for our neighbours” means, of course, that the neighbours laugh at us. “Laugh at them” is self-explanatory; “in our turn” indicates an opposite or at least different action from the first part of the sentence. If the first part is changed to “Make sport of our neighbours,” meaning “laugh at the neighbours,” the meaning of the sentence becomes “For what do we live, but to laugh at our neighbours or laugh at our neighbours?” which, of course, makes no sense.

The Signet editions that had the error both were printed in the 1980s, and it is not clear if more recent editions have the word corrected. Does anyone have a recent printing they would be so kind as to check? It might be interesting to see if the usage has slipped into any other editions. We consulted the editions of P&P extant at AustenBlog World Headquarters; besides the Oxford Illustrated edition and the e-book version, we also have a 1907 Brock-illustrated Dent edition and one of the Everyman editions (also published by Dent and likely based on the same text) given away by The Daily Telegraph in a Becoming Jane-related promotion earlier this year: Both had “for.”

It would be very interesting indeed to know for how long the Signet editions contained such a mistake!

We heard from Josie Brown, one of the authors of the P&P musical to which we linked yesterday, and she said that each week they will post one of the songs from the musical in full (each song only will remain available for one week). This week’s song is “It Is A Truth,” sung by Darcy and Bingley.

We’ve had e-mails from several Alert Janeites who saw this series mentioned in passing in various articles; since we blogged about the series when it was first announced shortly after the Jane Austen Season and no further details have been forthcoming, we’ve been in watch and see mode about it, rather hoping that it might shrivel and die on the vine, but apparently Our Lady of the Fangirls doesn’t love us quite that much.

The first series to be launched under the new deal is the drama Lost In Austen, which Granada International will present to international buyers at MIPTV 2008. Pre-production work has started on the series, which is written by Guy Andrews for ITV1. It is billed as a highly original take on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, following a modern woman who finds herself swapping places with Austen’s fictional heroine Elizabeth Bennet. Trapped in her favorite book, Amanda tries desperately to keep the story on course, while falling in love with Mr. Darcy.

We have heard some details about the planned series from a very well-placed source, which unfortunately we are not at liberty to reveal; but from what we have heard, be afraid, Gentle Readers, be very afraid. Of course it’s still very much in pre-production so we may be suffering anticipatory angst in vain, and it will turn out to be the wacky, hilarious modern-girl-meets-Regency romp that The Powers That Be apparently think it is rather than a Mary Sue bad fan fiction trainwreck. We confess the thing that annoyed us the most is that ITV gave MP, NA, and Persuasion only 90 minutes each and this sack of crap is getting several (rumor has it 3-4) 1-hour episodes.

Oh, and the first unwary, lazy journalist to compare it to Life on Mars (which we adored, both series) gets the Cluebat of Janeite Righteousness with extreme prejudice.

In case anyone is wondering, this project has nothing to do with the Emma Campbell Webster roleplaying book Lost in Austen that will be out in a few weeks (which actually will be called Being Elizabeth Bennet in the UK). Another article listed the title of the series as the “working title” so it may change to avoid confusion.