Crime and Prejudice: A playful peek behind the scenes of Jane Austen's world

"With subtle wit and uncanny ventriloquism, these vignettes of Austen's characters deepen our understanding of her novels, while effortlessly entertaining us. Delightful!" — Stephanie Barron, author of the Being a Jane Austen Mystery series

What if the beloved characters in Pride and Prejudice were lawbreakers? 

The twelve stories in Crime and Prejudice imagine a deliciously seamy underside to Jane Austen's world. Arson, highway robbery, petty crime and murder mingle with fox-hunting, bawdy-houses, gaming-tables and transportation to Australia in these tales recounted to Elizabeth Darcy by her friends and family.

Discover why Mr. Bennet became a pug owner and a poisoner; how Elizabeth Darcy started a riot while agitating for women's enrolment at Cambridge; where Caroline Bingley found forbidden love; and, of course, when Mr. Darcy actually came by his wet shirt.

The Crime and Prejudice short stories are playful, subversive, but faithful to the spirit of the original characters and their author's acerbic wit. These people are flawed, like us, but endearing in their struggles to overcome their limitations, particularly those placed on women in Regency England. For ultimately, it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a good fortune has no want at all of a husband.

If you like Richard Osman and Alexander McCall Smith, and love Jane Austen, Crime and Prejudice is for you!

Longlisted for the Comedy Women in Print prize, July 2025 (shortlist to be announced in September 2025)

Finalist in the Wishing Shelf Book Awards audiobook category, February 2025

"The stories in Crime and Prejudice are wickedly funny in a way that Jane Austen would enjoy. Julia Miller has combined meticulous research into the seamy side of 19th century England with a faultless ear for the voices of the characters of Pride and Prejudice to create for each one a plausible, or at least possible, afterlife that readers will find amusing and sometimes moving." — Dr Gillian Dooley, Author of She Played and Sang: Jane Austen and Music

"A very enjoyable read. Julia Miller's stories are pure Austen in style and substance. Bingley would approve!" — Crispin Bonham-Carter, Mr Bingley in the BBC 1995 series of Pride and Prejudice

"Delightful vignettes set in a literary world, Jane Austen's, that the author clearly knows inside out and wickedly subverts at every opportunity. Crime and Prejudice displays a refined sense of mischief and a complete mastery of Austen-esque style and tropes. Congratulations to Julia L. Miller!" — Martin Langfield, bestselling author of The Malice Box

"I'll be d___! A most thoroughly ingenious collection, which instantly put me in an even temper. Capital!" — Professor Paul Baker, author of Fabulosa! The Story of Polari, Britain's Secret Gay Language