Jane Austen in popular culture

Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier in a 1940 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice

The author Jane Austen and her works have been represented in popular culture in a variety of forms.

Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose social commentary and masterly use of both free indirect speech and irony eventually made her one of the most influential and honoured novelists in English literature. In popular culture, Austen's novels and personal life have been adapted into book illustrations (starting in 1833), dramatizations (starting in 1895), films (starting in 1940), television (starting in 1938) and professional theatre (starting in 1901), with adaptations varying greatly in their faithfulness to the original.[1]

Books and scripts that use the general storyline of Austen's novels but change or otherwise modernise the story also became popular at the end of the 20th century. For example, Clueless (1995), Amy Heckerling's updated version of Emma, which takes place in Beverly Hills, became a cultural phenomenon and spawned its own television series,[2] and furthermore, near the beginning of the 21st century, over two centuries after her death, her works still inform popular culture and cosplay.[3]

  1. ^ Looser, Devoney (2017). The Making of Jane Austen. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-1-4214-2282-4.
  2. ^ Pucci and Thompson, 1.
  3. ^ "Jane Austen's worldwide fan club". BBC News. 16 July 2017. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 9 December 2020.