Which novel begins with 'It is a truth universally acknowledged'?

The novel that begins with “It is a truth universally acknowledged” is Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

The famous sentence continues by saying that a wealthy unmarried man must be in want of a wife. Its apparent certainty is playful: the line presents a social belief as universal while quietly revealing that it is mainly the matchmaking hope of families with unmarried daughters. Marriage, money, reputation, and social rank shape nearly every major event in the novel.

The opening immediately introduces the Bennet family’s situation. Their neighbour, Mr Bingley, rents Netherfield Park, and his arrival raises Mrs Bennet’s hopes that one of her five daughters might marry well. Mr Darcy soon enters the story, creating the central relationship with Elizabeth Bennet.

A common mix-up is attributing the line to another Austen novel, especially Emma or Sense and Sensibility. It belongs specifically to Pride and Prejudice, first published anonymously in 1813. The novel’s opening is also frequently discussed as one of the most memorable first lines in English literature.