Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Her use of biting irony, along with her realism, humour, and social commentary, have long earned her acclaim among critics, scholars, and popular audiences alike.
Pride and Prejudice is an 1813 romantic novel of manners written by Jane Austen. The novel follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the dynamic protagonist of the book, who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and eventually comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness. A classic piece filled with comedy, its humour lies in its honest depiction of manners, education, marriage and money during the Regency era in Great Britain.
Pemberley is the fictional country estate owned by Fitzwilliam Darcy, the male protagonist in Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. It is located near the fictional town of Lambton, and believed by some to be based on Chatsworth House, near Bakewell in Derbyshire.
Pride and Prejudice is a six-episode 1995 British television drama, adapted by Andrew Davies from Jane Austen's 1813 novel of the same name. Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth starred as Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy. Produced by Sue Birtwistle and directed by Simon Langton, the serial was a BBC production with additional funding from the American A&E Network. BBC1 originally broadcast the 55-minute episodes from 24 September to 29 October 1995. The A&E Network aired the series in double episodes on three consecutive nights beginning 14 January 1996.
Pride & Prejudice is a 2005 romance film directed by Joe Wright and based on Jane Austen's 1813 novel of the same name. The film depicts five sisters from an English family of landed gentry as they deal with issues of marriage, morality and misconceptions. Keira Knightley stars in the lead role of Elizabeth Bennet, while Matthew Macfadyen plays her romantic interest Mr. Darcy. Produced by Working Title Films in association with StudioCanal, the film was released on 16 September 2005 in the United Kingdom and Ireland and on 11 November in the United States.
Elizabeth Bennet is the protagonist in the 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. She is often referred to as Eliza or Lizzy by her friends and family. Elizabeth is the second child in a family of five daughters. Though the circumstances of the time and environment push her to seek a marriage of convenience for economic security, Elizabeth wishes to marry for love.
Fitzwilliam Darcy, generally referred to as Mr. Darcy, is one of the two central characters in Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. He is an archetype of the aloof romantic hero, and a romantic interest of Elizabeth Bennet, the novel's protagonist. The story's narration is almost exclusively from Elizabeth's perspective; the reader is given a one-sided view of Darcy for much of the novel, but hints are given throughout that there is much more to his character than meets the eye. The reader gets a healthy dose of dramatic irony as Elizabeth continually censures Mr. Darcy's character despite the aforementioned hints that Mr. Darcy is really a noble character at heart, albeit somewhat prideful. Usually referred to only as "Mr. Darcy" or "Darcy" by characters and the narrator, his first name is mentioned twice in the novel.
The reception history of Jane Austen follows a path from modest fame to wild popularity. Jane Austen (1775–1817), the author of such works as Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Emma (1815), has become one of the best-known and most widely read novelists in the English language. Her novels are the subject of intense scholarly study and the centre of a diverse fan culture.
The author Jane Austen and her works have been represented in popular culture in a variety of forms.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a 2009 parody novel by Seth Grahame-Smith. It is a mashup combining Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice (1813) with elements of modern zombie fiction, crediting Austen as co-author. It was first published in April 2009 by Quirk Books and in October 2009 a Deluxe Edition was released, containing full-color images and additional zombie scenes. The novel was adapted into a 2016 film starring Lily James and Sam Riley.
Jane Austen's (1775–1817) distinctive literary style relies on a combination of parody, burlesque, irony, free indirect speech and a degree of realism. She uses parody and burlesque for comic effect and to critique the portrayal of women in 18th-century sentimental and gothic novels. Austen extends her critique by highlighting social hypocrisy through irony; she often creates an ironic tone through free indirect speech in which the thoughts and words of the characters mix with the voice of the narrator. The degree to which critics believe Austen's characters have psychological depth informs their views regarding her realism. While some scholars argue that Austen falls into a tradition of realism because of her finely executed portrayal of individual characters and her emphasis on "the everyday", others contend that her characters lack a depth of feeling compared with earlier works, and that this, combined with Austen's polemical tone, places her outside the realist tradition.
Georgian society in Jane Austen's novels is the ever-present background of her work, the world in which all her characters are set. Entirely situated during the reign of George III, the novels of Jane Austen describe their everyday lives, their joys, and sorrows, as well as their loves, and provide in the process an irreplaceable insight into the period.
Jane Austen fan fiction is the collection of numerous sequels and spin-offs produced by authors who have either used the plot of Austen's original novels, or have extended them, to produce new works of fiction. Austen's posthumous popularity has inspired fan fiction that runs the gamut through numerous genres, but the most concentrated medium has remained the novel. According to Pucci and Thompson in their 2003 survey on the contemporary evolution of Jane Austen's work, at the turn of the 20th century, over one hundred sequels, rewritings, and continuations of her novels had been published.
A mash-up novel, is a work of fiction which combines a pre-existing literature text, often a classic work of fiction, with another genre, usually horror genre, into a single narrative. Marjorie Kehe of the Christian Science Monitor renders this admixture of classic text as "somewhere between 60 and 85 percent original text, with new plot twists added by contemporary co-authors". These "twists" often include horror fiction elements like vampires, werewolves or zombies.
Death Comes to Pemberley is a British fan fiction novel by P.D. James that continues Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with a murder mystery.
Abigail Reynolds is an American author and physician. She is best known as the author of Jane Austen-inspired novels in the Pemberley Variations series as well as modern novels set on Cape Cod.
Old Friends and New Fancies: An Imaginary Sequel to the Novels of Jane Austen (1913) is a novel by Sybil G. Brinton that is generally acknowledged to be the first sequel to the works of Jane Austen and as such the first piece of Austen fan fiction. It incorporates characters from each of Austen's six major novels into one unified story, alongside characters of Brinton's own invention. Keeping to the spirit of the source novels, its major theme is the difficulties faced by assorted pairs of lovers placed within the class structure of early 19th century Britain.
George Wickham is a fictional character created by Jane Austen who appears in her novel Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813. George Wickham is introduced as a militia officer who has a shared history with Mr. Darcy. Wickham's charming demeanour and his story of being badly treated by Darcy attracts the sympathy of the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, to the point that she is warned by her aunt not to fall in love and marry him. It is revealed through the course of the story that George Wickham's true nature is that of a manipulative unprincipled layabout, a ne'er-do-well wastrel, compulsive liar and a degenerate, compulsive gambler, a seducer and a libertine, living the lifestyle of a rake. Lacking the finances to pay for his lifestyle, he gambles regularly and cons credit from tradesmen and shopkeepers and skips out on paying-up.
Kate Hamill is an American actress and playwright.
