Editing Pride and Prejudice (section)

===20th century===
{{Quote box
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You could not shock her more than she shocks me,
Beside her [[James Joyce|Joyce]] seems innocent as grass.
It makes me most uncomfortable to see
An English spinster of the middle class
Describe the amorous effects of 'brass',
Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety
The economic basis of society.
</poem>
[[W. H. Auden]] (1937) on Austen<ref name="Southam" />
}}
The American scholar [[Claudia L. Johnson]] defended the novel from the criticism that it has an unrealistic fairy-tale quality.<ref name="Johnson, Claudia page 74">Johnson (1988) p.74</ref> One critic, [[Mary Poovey]], wrote that the "romantic conclusion" of ''Pride and Prejudice'' is an attempt to hedge the conflict between the "individualistic perspective inherent in the bourgeois value system ''and'' the authoritarian hierarchy retained from traditional, paternalistic society".<ref name="Johnson, Claudia page 74"/> Johnson wrote that Austen's view of a power structure capable of reformation was not an "escape" from conflict.<ref name="Johnson, Claudia page 74"/> Johnson wrote the "outrageous unconventionality" of Elizabeth Bennet was in Austen's own time very daring, especially given the strict censorship that was imposed in Britain by the Prime Minister, William Pitt, in the 1790s when Austen wrote ''Pride and Prejudice''.<ref name="Johnson, Claudia page 74"/>

In the early twentieth century, the term "Collins," named for Austen's [[Mr William Collins#Eponym|William Collins]], came into use as slang for a thank-you note to a host.<ref>Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "Collins (n.2)," July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1085984454</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Burrill|first=Katharine|title=Talks with Girls: Letter-Writing and Some Letter-Writers|journal=Chambers's Journal|date=27 August 1904 |volume=7|issue=352|page=611}}</ref>