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Who really said it

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!

Written by Jane Austen 1775–1817 · English novelist
Verified wording — but read who says it, and why. Free to reuse

The sentence is Austen’s, in Pride and Prejudice (1813), volume I, chapter XI, and our wording matches the first edition exactly. It is not Austen praising books. The speaker is Caroline Bingley, who has picked up a book only because it is the second volume of the one Darcy is reading, gives up trying to enjoy it, yawns, says this — and two sentences later throws it aside and looks round the room for something else to do.

Last verified 18 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Verified quote & credit

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813), vol. I, ch. XI — spoken by Caroline Bingley, who is feigning interest to impress Darcy and discards the book two sentences later. — Quotle.info

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In context

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Provenance

The passage it comes from

Work
Pride and Prejudice
First published
London: T. Egerton, 1813, in three volumes
Location
Volume I, chapter XI
Spoken by
Caroline Bingley — a character, not the narrator

At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be amused with her own book, which she had only chosen because it was the second volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, “How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book!…” No one made any reply. She then yawned again, threw aside her book, and cast her eyes round the room in quest of some amusement. Abridged — the omitted clause is about wanting a library of her own

Transcribed from the 1813 first edition. The frame is doing all the work: she is bored, the book is a prop, and Austen has her discard it immediately.

First edition scan
Read the 1813 first edition
Pride and Prejudice at Project Gutenberg

How we verified this

  • Against the first edition — the sentence appears in volume I of the T. Egerton first edition of 1813 ↗, and again in a second scanned copy ↗ of the same edition, both reading “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” with no commas around “after all”.
  • The punctuation you usually see — the widely circulated Project Gutenberg text ↗ is the illustrated 1894 George Allen edition, which repunctuates the line as “I declare, after all, there is no enjoyment like reading!” Our wording follows 1813.
  • The chapter — the passage sits in chapter XI, after dinner at Netherfield, in the scene where Miss Bingley is trying and failing to draw Darcy into conversation (Project Gutenberg ↗).
  • Public domain — first published in 1813, so the text is free of copyright in the United States; Wikisource ↗ and Project Gutenberg both carry it in full.
Public domain

First published by T. Egerton in 1813, far earlier than the 1931 United States public-domain cutoff. The novel is free to quote, reprint and adapt; the only thing a modern edition can own is its own apparatus — introductions, notes and editorial punctuation.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

The words are real. The sentiment is a performance.

This line is everywhere on reading lists, library posters and bookshop tote bags as Jane Austen’s tribute to books. The words are hers. The opinion is not — she gave it to a character precisely so that we would not believe it.

Caroline Bingley, not Jane Austen character, not author

Austen writes her as bored and calculating: she took the book only because it was the second volume of Darcy’s, and puts it down the moment the remark fails to get his attention.

“I declare after all…” context stripped

“No one made any reply. She then yawned again, threw aside her book” — the sentence immediately after is the joke, and quoting the line alone removes it.

“I declare, after all, there is no enjoyment like reading!” later variant

The commas come from the 1894 George Allen edition reproduced by Project Gutenberg ↗; the 1813 first edition ↗ has none.

Genuinely Austen, genuinely in the novel — and genuinely meant as flattery from a woman who would rather be doing anything else.

Context

Why it mattered

Chapter XI is a small masterclass in social manoeuvring. Miss Bingley spends the evening trying to get Darcy to look up from his book, and every device she tries — reading the same title, praising his library, walking about the room — fails in a slightly more visible way than the last.

The declaration about reading is one of those devices. Austen puts an unimpeachable sentiment in the mouth of someone we can see is not sincere, which is a far sharper way of writing about books than simply praising them.

Austen gave the line to a character so that we would not believe it.

Read the full story

The scene is after dinner at Netherfield, with Jane recovering upstairs. Mr Hurst falls asleep on a sofa; Darcy takes up a book; Miss Bingley takes up the second volume of it and spends more attention on his page than her own.

Two sentences after the famous line she gives up on reading entirely. A few lines further on she is proposing a ball and then walking the length of the room in the hope of being watched — which is when Darcy finally does look up, and not in the way she intended.

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Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Pride and Prejudice (full text)www.gutenberg.org

The complete novel. Note that this is the 1894 George Allen text, whose punctuation differs slightly from 1813.
Pride and Prejudice, first edition 1813, vol. Iarchive.org

Scan of the T. Egerton first edition — the chapter XI passage as originally printed.
Pride and Prejudice, first edition (three volumes)archive.org

A cleaner scan of the 1813 first edition, used to confirm the wording and punctuation.
Pride and Prejudiceen.wikisource.org

Transcribed text, chapter by chapter.
Pride and Prejudiceen.wikipedia.org

Publication history, characters and reception.
Jane Austenen.wikipedia.org

Her life and the six novels.

The author

About Jane Austen

Jane Austen

1775–1817 · English novelist

Jane Austen published four novels in her lifetime, all anonymously — Pride and Prejudice appeared in 1813 as “by the author of Sense and Sensibility”. Her method is almost entirely indirect: characters reveal themselves by what they say and how badly it fits what they are doing. Caroline Bingley declaring her love of reading while yawning over a book she has not chosen is that method in one sentence.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice: A Novel. In Three Volumes (London: T. Egerton, 1813), vol. 1, chap. 11. Spoken by the character Caroline Bingley.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!’?” Last verified 18 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-declare-after-all-there-is-no-enjoyment-like-reading/

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