Your online source for Jane Austen and her legacy
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: We are coming up on a significant anniversary next year in the Jane Austen film adaptation world. Sense and Sensibility (1995) will be thirty—an age in Austen’s Regency world when unmarried women were considered old maids, unworthy of serious consideration on the marriage market. Not so with this... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: With so much uncertainty and strife in the news, I am always ready for a feel-good, fairy tale getaway movie to escape to for a few hours. I have several favorites to call upon in my library: The Princess Bride (1987), Ever After (1998), and Pretty Woman (1990).... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: What do we know about Jane Austen’s love life? Very little. The information that survives is found in her personal letters and from family recollections. Apart from the one proposal by Harris Bigg-Wither, no other known romances or love affairs were documented. For someone who wrote so perceptively... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: Eighteen years after it first aired on BBC One in October 1995, the television mini-series Pride and Prejudice (1995) is still blowing bonnets off Janeites and wowing them in the aisles! This week in London a twelve-foot statue replicating Colin Firth’s portrayal of Mr. Darcy’s famous wet shirt... Continue Reading →
I have been blogging about Jane Austen here at Austenprose for over five years and I have reviewed many books and movies, yet I have held off writing about the one that really turned me into a Jane Austen disciple—the 1980 BBC Pride and Prejudice. When something is close to our hearts we want to... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: Charles Dickens’ classic novel Great Expectations has been adapted no less than fourteen times for the screen. Like Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, every ten years or so it gets trotted out for a new interpretation; and, for good reason. The tale is... Continue Reading →
Nominated for seven Academy Awards®, the 1995 movie Sense and Sensibility remains one of my most cherished interpretations of a Jane Austen novel. Everything about this film project seems to be touched with gold; from the award-winning screenplay by actress Emma Thompson; to the incredible depth of British acting talent: Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, Gemma... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: The romance of Emma, Lady Hamilton and Lord Horatio Nelson might just rival Romeo and Juliette or Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy as the greatest love story of all time. Moreover, their story is made all the more poignant because it is not a work of fiction created... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: The fourth and final episode of season four of the Miss Marple Mysteries aired on Sunday, July 26th on Masterpiece Mystery with Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, a new adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel on PBS. The new Miss Marple, Julia McKenzie, is growing on me. I... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress:Â "If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad." The new ITV/Masterpiece PBS adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey aired on PBS last night. After viewing a pensive Persuasion adaptation last week during The Complete Jane Austen, I was... Continue Reading →
