The bill features a quote from her famous novel ‘Pride & Prejudice’: “I declare after all that there is no enjoyment like reading!” – which has left fans fuming because it was spoken by a character who doesn’t like books.
The sarcastic remark is uttered by Caroline Bingley as a dig towards the heroine Elizabeth Bennett.
Fans were quick to accuse the Bank of using Google to randomly pick a quote instead of actually reading the book.
But the Bank of England’s chairman Mark Carney said the quote was meant to be both ironic and sincere.
“It’s two things: It captures much of [Austen’s] spirit, that is the quote, you can read it straight, there is no enjoyment like reading, and we agree with that,” he said.
Twitter users were not convinced however, nominating this line from Austen’s first novel ‘Northanger Abbey’ as an alternative: “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
We’d vote for it.
