A Classic Love Story: The Branding of Pride and Prejudice

Abstract

In this thesis, I analyse how publishing houses use branding to create a narrative around six different editions of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. In order to do this, I look at the paratextual elements of the novel as described by Genette (1997) and analyse them in light of Bourdieu's theory of symbolic and economic capital (1993). I also research whether the presented branding resonates in the reader reception by analysing Instagram posts. Most publishing houses brand Pride and Prejudice as a classic novel, with a few exceptions, and this narrative resonates in the reception on Instagram, to an extent.