Jane Austen knew a thing or two about complicated women and the way they move through the world.
The author’s iconic bibliography — from “Pride and Prejudice” and “Emma” to “Sense and Sensibility,” and those are the just the English class curriculum bangers — has always hinged on indelible heroines and their Regency-era attempts to get their lives in order.
These stories are both beholden to their time and place and undeniably universal in their concerns and charms.Austen’s books have inspired all manner of adaptations on both stage and screen, from the faithful (Ang Lee’s luminous “Sense and Sensibility”) to the lightly loosened and even the straight-up free-wheeling (“Bridget Jones’s Diary”) to the mostly inane (“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”).
Austen’s books incisively depict a specific time in British life, but her keen understanding of human interactions and desires can happily be transplanted to a range of stories.
Read full article