The morning after the ball, Mr. Collins requests the honour of a private audience with Miss Elizabeth. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 19 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: one of the great comic proposals in literature, delivered by a man incapable of imagining the word no.

Mrs. Bennet clears the room over Elizabeth's protests, and Mr. Collins begins with his reasons for marrying, in order: it is right for a clergyman to set the example, it will add greatly to his happiness, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh has twice condescended to advise it. Affection appears nowhere on the list, though he promises that on the subject of her small fortune he will be uniformly silent after the wedding.

• Mr. Collins runs away with his feelings in the most businesslike manner possible, assuring Elizabeth that her wit and vivacity, ...