The Complete Jane Austen

As a reader and writer of the most popular but most maligned and misunderstood genre in literature, people ask me all the time for a definition and best examples of romance novels. A romance novel is a story in which one of the major themes is love and the ending is happy. That’s it. Many of our most beloved books are technically “romance novels”.

One of our most beloved historic authors is Jane Austen. She is the queen of the Regency romance novel. Want to wet your feet in the genre with this paragon of romance? Lucky for you she is experiencing an unprecedented revival. Recently around the country Jane Austen Book Clubs have been popping up and her novels have all been republished. New novels from Mr. Darcy’s perspective (there are many) and about the secondary characters in her novels have come out. Hollywood has produced a movie loosely based on Austen’s life, “Becoming Jane”, and one in which four friends experience the same situations as characters in her novels while reading her books, “The Jane Austen Book Club”. Here in Seattle, the fabulous Book-it Reperatory Theater is performing her novel Persuasion from February 8 through March 2.

Masterpiece on PBS is starting a new series “The Complete Jane Austen“, with all new adaptations of her six novels and a new story about her personal love life. From the Masterpiece website:

JAN 13: Persuasion
Sally Hawkins appears as Anne Elliot, a woman destined for spinsterhood after a proposal eight years earlier. Then her spurned suitor reappears.

JAN 20: Northanger Abbey
In a medieval house that appeals to her most lurid fantasies, romance addict Catherine Moreland (Felicity Jones) begins a relationship with the younger son of the estate.

JAN 27: Mansfield Park
After being sent to live at Mansfield Park, Fanny Price (Billie Piper) navigates a labyrinth of intrigues and affairs among its occupants.

FEB 3: Miss Austen Regrets
Courtship she knew well; only the last act eluded her. A film biography that dramatizes Jane Austen’s lost loves.

FEB 10, 17 & 24: Pride and Prejudice
Colin Firth is Mr. Darcy and Jennifer Ehle is Elizabeth Bennet in the definitive adaptation of the most-loved of all Austen novels.

MAR 23: Emma
Kate Beckinsale stars in the title role as the tireless matchmaker who professes no interest in matrimony for herself, only for her orphaned protegee, Harriet Smith (Samantha Morton).

MAR 30 & APR 6: Sense and Sensibility
Though poor, levelheaded Elinor Dashwood (Hattie Morahan) and her impulsive sister Marianne (Charity Wakefield) attract a trio of promising gentlemen.

I intend to watch the series and take notes on their lexicon and patterns of speech for my writing. Enjoy!

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