An in-depth study of the relationship between Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and its various screen versions.

This collection of essays explores the literary and cinematic implications of translating Austen's prose into film. Contributors raise questions of how prose fiction and cinema differ, of how mass commercial audiences require changes to script and character, and of how continually remade films evoke memories of earlier productions. The essays represent widely divergent perspectives, from literary 'purists' suspicious of filmic renderings of Austen to film-makers who see the text as a stimulus for producing exceptional cinema. This comprehensive study will be of interest to students and teachers alike.

Jane Austen's career as a novelist began in 1811 with the publication of Sense and Sensibility. Her work was finally adapted for the big screen with the 1940 filming of Pride and Prejudice (very successful at the box office). No other film adaptation of an Austen novel was made for theatrical release until 1995. Amazingly, during 1995 and 1996, six film and television adaptations appeared, first Clueless, then Persuasion, followed by Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, the Miramax Emma, and the Meridian/A&E Emma. This book traces the history of film and television adaptations (nearly 30 to date) of Jane Austen manuscripts, compares the adaptations to the manuscripts, compares the way different adaptations treat the novels, and analyzes the adaptations as examples of cinematic art. The first of seven chapters explains why the novels of Jane Austen have become a popular source of film and television adaptations. The following six chapters each cover one of Austen's novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey. Each chapter begins with a summary of the main events of the novel. Then a history of the adaptations is presented followed by an analysis of the unique qualities of each adaptation, a comparison of these adaptations to each other and to the novels on which they are based, and a reflection of relevant film and literary criticism as it applies to the adaptations.

In 1995 and 1996 six film or television adaptations of Jane Austen's novels were produced -- an unprecedented number. More amazing, all were critical and/or box office successes. What accounts for this explosion of interest? Much of the appeal of these films lies in our nostalgic desire at the end of the millennium for an age of greater politeness and sexual reticence. Austen's ridicule of deceit and pretentiousness also appeals to our fin de siècle sensibilities. The novels were changed, however, to enhance their appeal to a wide popular audience, and the revisions reveal much about our own culture and its values. These recent productions espouse explicitly twentieth-century feminist notions and reshape the Austenian hero to make him conform to modern expectations. Linda Troost and Sayre Greenfield present fourteen essays examining the phenomenon of Jane Austen as cultural icon, providing thoughtful and sympathetic insights on the films through a variety of critical approaches. The contributors debate whether these productions enhance or undercut the subtle feminism that Austen promoted in her novels. From Persuasion to Pride and Prejudice, from the three Emmas (including Clueless ) to Sense and Sensibility, these films succeed because they flatter our intelligence and education. And they have as much to tell us about ourselves as they do about the world of Jane Austen. This second edition includes a new chapter on the recent film version of Mansfield Park.

A girl gets divorced just before her wedding! A widow seeks answers for the deaths of her husband and son. A mysterious man follows a convicted rape victim. A stranger scribbles a number in a train. Two hearts part ways with a final wish: Hope We Never Meet Again. Then, there is a phone call.... Varun Diwakar is your average, happy-go-lucky young lad with many a dream that most middle-class youth harbor. But, he has a peculiar predicament. An accident changes his life forever. He discovers that he can travel into the minds and dreams of people - and in that journey - he discovers a lot of untold stories, painful narratives and surprising twists. What triggers it all, is the death of a dear friend that Varun decides to avenge. What happens in the end? How are all these stories connected? Does love outlast death and time?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Wonderfully tender and hilariously funny, Eligible tackles gender, class, courtship, and family as Curtis Sittenfeld reaffirms herself as one of the most dazzling authors writing today. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE TIMES (UK) This version of the Bennet family—and Mr. Darcy—is one that you have and haven’t met before: Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to help—and discover that the sprawling Tudor they grew up in is crumbling and the family is in disarray. Youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia are too busy with their CrossFit workouts and Paleo diets to get jobs. Mary, the middle sister, is earning her third online master’s degree and barely leaves her room, except for those mysterious Tuesday-night outings she won’t discuss. And Mrs. Bennet has one thing on her mind: how to marry off her daughters, especially as Jane’s fortieth birthday fast approaches. Enter Chip Bingley, a handsome new-in-town doctor who recently appeared on the juggernaut reality TV dating show Eligible. At a Fourth of July barbecue, Chip takes an immediate interest in Jane, but Chip’s friend neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy reveals himself to Liz to be much less charming. . . . And yet, first impressions can be deceiving. Praise for Eligible “Even the most ardent Austenite will soon find herself seduced.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “Blissful . . . Sittenfeld modernizes the classic in such a stylish, witty way you’d guess even Jane Austen would be pleased.”—People (book of the week) “[A] sparkling, fresh contemporary retelling.”—Entertainment Weekly “[Sittenfeld] is the ideal modern-day reinterpreter. Her special skill lies not just in her clear, clean writing, but in her general amusement about the world, her arch, pithy, dropped-mike observations about behavior, character and motivation. She can spot hypocrisy, cant, self-contradiction and absurdity ten miles away. She’s the one you want to leave the party with, so she can explain what really happened. . . . Not since Clueless, which transported Emma to Beverly Hills, has Austen been so delightedly interpreted. . . . Sittenfeld writes so well—her sentences are so good and her story so satisfying. . . . As a reader, let me just say: Three cheers for Curtis Sittenfeld and her astute, sharp and ebullient anthropological interest in the human condition.”—Sarah Lyall, The New York Times Book Review “A clever, uproarious evolution of Austen’s story.”—The Denver Post “If there exists a more perfect pairing than Curtis Sittenfeld and Jane Austen, we dare you to find it. . . . Sittenfeld makes an already irresistible story even more beguiling and charming.”—Elle “A playful, wickedly smart retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.”—BuzzFeed “Sittenfeld is an obvious choice to re-create Jane Austen’s comedy of manners. [She] is a master at dissecting social norms to reveal the truths of human nature underneath.”—The Millions “A hugely entertaining and surprisingly unpredictable book, bursting with wit and charm.”—The Irish Times “An unputdownable retelling of the beloved classic.”—PopSugar

A loving and irreverent all-female adaptation of Jane Austen's unrivalled literary classic.

This work of literary and film criticism examines all eight filmed adaptations of Jane Austen's Emma produced between 1948 and 1996 as vastly different interpretations of the source novel. Instead of condemning the movies and television specials as being «not as good as the book, » Marc DiPaolo considers how each adaptation might be understood as a valid «reading» of Austen's text. For example, he demonstrates how the Gwyneth Paltrow film Emma is both a romance and a female coming-of-age story, the 1972 BBC miniseries dramatizes Emma's world as claustrophobic and Emma herself as suffering from depression, and the modern-day teen comedy Clueless comes closest of all to bringing a feminist reading of the novel to the screen. Each version illuminates a different, legitimate way of reading the novel that is rewarding for Austen fans, scholars, and students alike.

This unique journal encourages young readers to spend more time enjoying books, gives them great suggestions for what to read next, and helps them remember what they’ve read. Do you have a junior bookworm in your home? Or would like to see your child develop a greater interest in reading? This journal was designed with your child in mind. Anne Bogel, creator of the Modern Mrs Darcy blog, wants to help instill a lifelong love of reading in your child with a journal that’s just for them. Inside, kids will find fun lists of book recommendations for different genres and interests, creative reading-related activities, and space to record what they’ve read and what they would like to read. This journal is an ideal companion for all your child’s reading adventures. Anne’s book journal for adults, My Reading Life, is available now wherever books are sold.

“This inventive retelling of Pride and Prejudice charms.”—People “A fun, page-turning romp and a thought-provoking look at the class-obsessed strata of Pakistani society.”—NPR Alys Binat has sworn never to marry—until an encounter with one Mr. Darsee at a wedding makes her reconsider. A scandal and vicious rumor concerning the Binat family have destroyed their fortune and prospects for desirable marriages, but Alys, the second and most practical of the five Binat daughters, has found happiness teaching English literature to schoolgirls. Knowing that many of her students won’t make it to graduation before dropping out to marry and have children, Alys teaches them about Jane Austen and her other literary heroes and hopes to inspire the girls to dream of more. When an invitation arrives to the biggest wedding their small town has seen in years, Mrs. Binat, certain that their luck is about to change, excitedly sets to work preparing her daughters to fish for rich, eligible bachelors. On the first night of the festivities, Alys’s lovely older sister, Jena, catches the eye of Fahad “Bungles” Bingla, the wildly successful—and single—entrepreneur. But Bungles’s friend Valentine Darsee is clearly unimpressed by the Binat family. Alys accidentally overhears his unflattering assessment of her and quickly dismisses him and his snobbish ways. As the days of lavish wedding parties unfold, the Binats wait breathlessly to see if Jena will land a proposal—and Alys begins to realize that Darsee’s brusque manner may be hiding a very different man from the one she saw at first glance. Told with wry wit and colorful prose, Unmarriageable is a charming update on Jane Austen’s beloved novel and an exhilarating exploration of love, marriage, class, and sisterhood. Praise for Unmarriageable “Delightful . . . Unmarriageable introduces readers to a rich Muslim culture. . . . [Kamal] observes family dramas with a satiric eye and treats readers to sparkling descriptions of a days-long wedding ceremony, with its high-fashion pageantry and higher social stakes.”—Star Tribune “Thoroughly charming.”—New York Post “[A] funny, sometimes romantic, often thought-provoking glimpse into Pakistani culture, one which adroitly illustrates the double standards women face when navigating sex, love, and marriage. This is a must-read for devout Austenites.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)