Truths universally acknowledged: satire in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and James Gillray’s Harmony before Matrimony by Cecily Jenkinson

This article investigates Jane Austen’s status as a satirist by comparing and contrasting her best-known novel with a caricature print by her contemporary James Gillray. The article examines how satire is used in both works to present perspectives on early nineteenth-century attitudes to marriage. Setting the novel and the caricature print in their social and historical contexts, the article highlights their differences in form and purpose but finds, in this pair of examples, many parallels in the technical means by which the satire is conveyed and in the similar intentions of their creators.