Entertainment Weekly reviewed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies favorably, giving it a grade of A−.[10] Library Journal recommended the novel "...for all popular fiction collections".[11] The A.V. Club gave the novel a grade of A, commenting that "(w)hat begins as a gimmick ends with renewed appreciation of the indomitable appeal of Austen's language, characters, and situations ..."[12] The New Yorker's Macy Halford called the book's estimated blend of eighty-five percent Austen's words and fifteen percent Grahame-Smith's "one hundred per cent terrible"; while she admitted that the mashup may have accurately identified a subtextual theme of "mystery and menace" in the original novel, she still found Grahame-Smith's writing awful, singling out a passage in which Elizabeth Bennet prepares to kill Mr. Darcy over an overheard slight.[13]
As of April 19, 2009, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was number three on the New York Times bestseller list.[14] On the same morning, the book moved from the 300s to 27th place on amazon.co.uk's bestseller list. Before the book was published in the United Kingdom, it required a second printing.[15]
