Dance and privilege - interpreting the past, by Gillian Polack

I’m writing this post weeks before it gets put online because I’m off to Ireland for the World Science Fiction Convention and for a bit of research and to see a lot of friends. Another person attending the conference asked about Regency dances the other day, and named specific English dances. There are several possible reasons for there being no dances announced at that precise moment in time, but the first thing that came to my mind was the element of Pride and Prejudice that is all about the military. The Bennet sisters who were so excited when beautiful young men in uniform came their way. 

Some types of story (and the way the military is depicted in Pride and Prejudice means that it’s one of them) let us think that historical hurt can defended with a parasol or with gentle intervention. 

In fact, this is true for some people in some places at some times, including in the early nineteenth century. In New South Wales in 1808, Governor Bligh’s daughter, Mary, defended her father against the military that was deposing him. She used her parasol. She later married into the military, however. Jane Austen depicted a truth about the relationship of women of the right background and their relationship with the British military at that time, and Mary was, for me, the young woman who exemplified it in real life.

It was not the only type of relationship.

Those same military personally, if they were in Ireland, presented differently to different parts of the population. They may still have been an excitement and beautiful young men to those of the right ancestry (mainly English and Church of England) but they were certainly not kind to much of the Irish population. Social events that included these soldiers were not something many wanted to attend. Re-enacting those events is re-enacting historical problems. Having modern parties that features those problems, including English dances that celebrate the military, is celebrating hurt.

This can be extreme. We all have our own examples of historical incidents that are almost too painful to talk about. Mine is food-related from the 1940s, and has nothing at all to do with Jane Austen or dancing. I’ve mentioned it before and no doubt I’ll discuss it again. It’s something I still haven’t resolved or come to terms with and I am forever repeating myself on matters historical until I sort things out. 

I have a cookbook I still have not used, because every time I bring it out I say “I will use it and remember these women” and I look through the recipe (which are delightful) and I make plans… and I can’t bring myself to cook. Every single one of the authors of this book was dying while they were remembering food they used to make for friends and family. Their particular cuisine was almost wiped out by the murder of the Jews of Middle Europe. How can I have a dinner party with this in mind? How can I not?

What I can do is what Edna Ferber did, and find a way of translating the complex and awful history into fiction. That way we see more than one view. That way we look at Ireland and can see why some dances had different values to those same dances in England, and we can see why.

We know that historical experiences are not shared, but when an exciting narrative comes along we can forget. Fiction helps cement us in the forgetfulness, but it can also help us see views other than our own. I was going to talk about how wonderful Tara was before the Civil War in Gone with the Wind, but then I remember how a couple from different backgrounds had their lives destroyed when someone found out in Showboat. This is how Edna Ferber handled part of the painful past, in the novel Showboat. There was a hero-moment when Steve drank a tiny amount of Julie’s (his wife’s) blood so that he could claim he had the right blood in him and so that they could stay together. The reality in Showboat was that the hero moment didn’t take the pressures off. It didn’t allow Steve and Julie to continue making a living as a couple. It didn’t allow them any happiness. 

The reality in Gone with the Wind was that Scarlett O’Hara’s life was privileged. She suffered during the war, but she wasn’t a slave before and she wasn’t treated like a lower part of society afterwards. The reality in Jane Austen’s stories is that most of her characters are similarly privileged.

Dances are one of my clues to how people were treated and what they did with their lives. In Showboat, Julie dances in a particular way that demonstrated her background. In Pride and Prejudice, the Bennet girls dance in the way that demonstrates theirs.

I need to discover what someone not linked to British troops and English rule danced in 1808. I already know about the dances Mary did around the time she defended William Bligh using her parasol. William Bligh may have had the worst bad luck – first the mutiny on the Bounty and then the Rum Rebellion in New South Wales – but he was not lacking in privilege in most ways and his daughter danced the dances of the gentry, just like the Bennet daughters.

Cabinet of Curiosities: Collins' Classics & Jane Austen by Charlotte Wightwick

This month the History Girls have a Jane Austen theme so when it came to considering what to put into the Cabinet of Curiosities, it seemed only appropriate to bring my own little piece of Jane Austen with me – my copies of her novels.

I’m not one of those people who go on constantly about how wonderful printed books are over and above e-books: I love my Kindle, and with good reason (holidays, it turns out, are much more fun when you aren’t lugging 10 paperbacks around. Hating what you’re reading on a 4-hour train journey? Not a problem!)

However my Jane Austen novels are special to me.

They were given to me by my grandparents. I was a bookish teenager and had actually read Austen previously – my mum’s copies, when I was about 12 – and just hadn’t got her. Too much sitting around talking, not enough stuff happening (I know, I know – all I can say is that I was young.) So I said ‘thank you’ politely and wondered what on earth I was supposed to do with a set of books which a) we already had in the house and b) I knew I didn’t like (even though they were Classics).

Then came that adaptation in the mid-90s and I realised that, wet shirts aside, Jane Austen was funny. Really, really funny. And sad and clever and romantic and wonderfully, wonderfully human. So I was off, re-reading the lot within weeks and falling irrevocably in love with her characters, her plots and her writing. And I read my own copies. Here they are:

They’re unlike any books I owned at the time.

They were obviously old – not ancient, but definitely not new (I can’t recall where my grandparents said they’d got them, sadly.) The title page informs me that they are part of ‘Collins Library of Classics’, although they contain no date of printing. A quick online skim says that they were published between 1903 and 1945, probably in the 1930s.

For another thing, they were small, much smaller than a standard paperback (6 x 4 inches rather than approx. 7.5 x 5), red-bound with gold lettering on the spine. The pages were made of much thinner paper than I was used to handling and each included a picture opposite the frontispiece. And they had that proper old-book smell.

 So having started by saying I love my Kindle – and I do – it is also right that reading Jane Austen is still a very different experience for me when I pick up my little red copies. I do have e-copies (and audiobooks too) and they are wonderful novels in whatever format I choose. But when I read them in their physical form, they look, smell and feel as they did that (second) time I read Jane Austen: they are excitement, discovery and emotion made real. And that’s what books should do, surely?

All for Love? Pride and Prejudice, Hermsprong, and rational attachment

Jane Austen, by Cassandra Austen, uploaded by Winniwuk at German Wikimedia

'whom she regarded herself with an interest, if not quite so tender, at least as reasonable and just, as what Jane felt for Bingley.'

Thus Elizabeth Bennet on her future husband, Darcy. A lot of people regard Jane Austen as romantic fiction nowadays (maybe because of that episode when Darcy appeared before Elizabeth in a wet shirt). But for all Darcy's 'fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien', Pride and Prejudice is absolutely not about a young woman succumbing to a fit of romantic, overpowering emotion, to say nothing of sexual attraction.

A couple of years ago, I came across a mention of Robert Bage's 'Hermsprong,' a book which Jane Austen had on her shelves. It's an interesting read for many reasons; one, the reiteration of the couplet 'pride and prejudice' on its pages, though for all I know the pairing of the words may well have been common at that time. It was published in 1796, a year before Austen completed the first draft of what was at that time called 'First Impressions.' And if it is a harder read than Pride and Prejudice, when you get into it, and past the rather laboured prologue, it's a fascinating one, particularly because of resonances with Pride and Prejudice.

One theme is the irrationality of revering persons just because of their high rank and how respect must be earned (Bage was known as a democrat, which wasn't a compliment in many circles. He had read Tom Paine and didn't concur in the dogma that the British form of government was the best possible, which in the days of repression following the French Revolution, was dangerous). Pride and Prejudice is not a radical text, but the folly of snobbery is important in the text, as it is in other Austen novels (think silly, feckless Sir Walter Eliot, brown-nosing his noble connections and condescending to those he thinks 'inferior' to himself'). However, what I want to talk about here is the issue of how anyone can achieve lasting happiness in marriage.

Clearly, the 'presenting theme' of Pride and Prejudice, announced in the first paragraph, is the importance of getting a husband (and an establishment) in the first place. Mrs Bennet knows this, and is hot on the scent of profitable husbands; not half as foolish as she's portrayed. Charlotte Lucas makes a cold-eyed choice of Mr Collins; marriage being: 'the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and, however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.' Charlotte's solution to the stupidity of the man she must live with is to forget him as much as possible, and enjoy looking after her parish and her poultry, and, later on no doubt, her children. It's to be hoped they don't take after their father.

However, there was a common preoccupation at that era (and perhaps at any era) with the question of how long-term marital happiness is to be achieved. Eighteenth century people were well aware that 'being in love', assuming a marriage began like that, rather than as a commercial transaction, would not last. Arguing with the Falmouth banker, Sumelin (a man whose teasing of his wife strongly resembles Mr Bennet's teasing of Mrs Bennet, only Sumelin's teasing is less malicious, not to say malevolent) the eponymous hero of Hermsprong quotes Mary Wollstonecraft, saying that the influence of women should be 'diminished on the side of - charms - and let its future increase be on the side of mind.' The reason for this is that it is not common for husbands 'to preserve the ardour of lovers.' What to do when that first ardour has subsided is crucial, if the married couple is not to slide into the matrimonial nastiness that characterises the Bennets' relationship. Their daughter Elizabeth is well aware of this: 'Had Elizabeth's opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing picture of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort, Her father, captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour, which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind, had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem and confidence, had vanished for ever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown.'

Mary Wollstonecraft; engraving by James Heath

Writing in A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Mary Wollstonecraft observed: 'Youth is the season for love in both sexes; but in those days of thoughtless enjoyment provision should be made for the more important years of life, when reflection takes the place of sensation… This is, must be, the course of nature - friendship or indifference inevitably succeeds love.'

Hermsprong and his Caroline take long walks together and discover how much they have in common as well as falling in love. It has to be said that I much prefer Caroline's less virtuous bosom friend Maria Fluart, a fascinating, independent-minded woman who supports Caroline against her abusive father Lord Grondale and, when Grondale tries to keep her in his house against her will, whips out a pistol and levels it at him and his friends. Did Roald Dahl read Hermsprong, I wonder? Maria Fluart doesn't whip the pistol out of her knickers, as Dahl's Red Riding Hood does, because women didn't wear knickers in those days, but there is a marked similarity.

All the same, Hermsprong and Caroline are ideally suited to each other, and are likely to remain friends all their lives. This is the point of the novel.

Consider, therefore, Elizabeth's feelings about Darcy: ' She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man, who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was a union that must have been to the advantage of both; by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved, and from his judgment, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance.' And this would be a marriage which 'could.. teach the admiring multitude what connubial felicity really was.'

Compare this with the union of Lydia and Wickham 'a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.' It is not, of course, impossible that Lydia and Wickham might after all become friends, but it is unlikely, and in fact Austen indicates that it doesn't happen.

Radical Austen is not, nor is she a feminist in the way Wollstonecraft is, and yet her novels recommend marriages which are based on the suitability for each other of the heroine and hero; not based on rent-rolls, or snobbery, or the desire to keep estates in the family - and not on a dizzying storm of sexual attraction either.

Jane Austen and Walter Scott: Not Quite Love and Friendship by Catherine Hokin

“Walter Scott has no business writing novels, especially good ones – it is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people’s mouths.”

 Jane Austen from original family picture. Getty

Author feuds: we at the History Girls are above such things but they are horribly common. Gore Vidal comparing Norman Mailer to Charles Manson; Vidal retaliating by punching and then headbutting him.  HG Wells calling Henry James a 'painful hippopotamus' before engaging in a rather nasty letter-writing battle. Ernest Hemingway dismissing F.Scott FitzGerald as a sissy, a moaner and a drunk. No one comes out well and it's not just the men who know how to sharpen a quill: the above 'attack' on Walter Scott was penned by our own mistress of manners, Jane Austen.

Now I'll be honest here, I'm not the world's greatest Austen fan, my tastes run a bit more melodramatic (and sometimes my prose, my agent's term 'you've gone purple again' is never meant as a compliment) which is why I love Walter far more. No one can deny, however, how well Austen can mix admiration into rivalry or the elegant dryness of her tone. This archness runs through her letters as much as her novels although the above comment (written to her niece Anna in 1814) does continue in a rather blunter vein: "I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it - but fear I must." It's hard not to hear the gritted teeth grinding just a little.

Walter Scott was, of course, a very different writer to Austen. His books are written on a far larger scale than hers and in a far more exuberant (also known as completely over-the-top) way but he was generous in his appreciation of Austen's style. His review of Emma, published in The Quarterly Review in 1816 is widely credited with bringing her work to a wider audience and may have been the impetus behind an early American printing. The review is not a raving endorsement but does include positive comments about Austen's other works (with one omission) and makes a distinction between Emma and what many felt was multiplicity of novels suddenly flooding the market, stating that it showed “a knowledge of the human heart, with the power and resolution to bring that knowledge to the service of honour and virtue,” unlike the “ephemeral productions which supply the regular demand of watering-places and circulating libraries.” Whether or not Austen appreciated the review (or even knew that Scott was its author) is unclear. As with much of her writing, her response that the authoress “has no reason, I think, to complain of her treatment in it, except in the total omission of ‘Mansfield Park.’ I cannot but be sorry that so clever a man as the Reviewer of ‘Emma’ should consider it as unworthy of being noticed” can be read in a positive or a peevish tone.

 No explanation or excuse needed

Scott continued to reflect positively on Austen's work throughout his own career. In 1826, he wrote in his private journal:“READ again, and for the third time at least, Miss Austen’s very finely written novel of Pride and Prejudice. That young lady has a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The big bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me.” (From an article by Stuart Kelly, whose book Scott-Land: The Man Who Invented a Nation is a wonderful read for anyone interested in Scott's life). In 1832, Scott wrote in the preface to the one novel he wrote with a more domestic setting, St Ronan's Well, that he had no “hope of rivaling … the brilliant and talented names of Edgeworth, Austen..whose success seems to have appropriated this province of the novel as exclusively their own." Was Austen as generous in return? I'm not enough of an Austen scholar to know but I think it would be fair to assume she was not. Although Scott could appreciate the genre she had made her own, she was definitely no fan of his. When James Stanier-Clarke, librarian to the Prince Regent, 'helpfully' suggested she might like to write a work of historical romance to celebrate the Prince, she was less than complimentary at the idea. "I am fully sensible that an Historical Romance, founded on the House of Saxe Cobourg might be much more to the purpose of Profit or Popularity, than such pictures of domestic Life in Country Villages as I deal in – but I could no more write a Romance than an Epic Poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my Life, & if it were indispensable for me to keep it up & never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first Chapter." Damned by faint praise indeed.

It is unfair of me to call the relationship between Scott and Austen a feud, it's really more of a niggle although I'm sure her clever tongue could hold its own in any author-celebrity death match. The one I would have liked to see? Austen versus Mark Twain. Twain loathed Austen's work, interestingly he also loathed Walter Scott, so much in fact that he once cited Walter Scott disease as a prime cause of the American Civil War: "Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, as it existed before the war, that he is in great measure responsible for the war." Reading Twain on Austen reminds me of the horrors of having to teach her to teenage boys: he expressed amazement that she had a natural death instead of being executed for literary crimes and followed that up by declaring he wanted to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone every time he attempted to read Pride and Prejudice. Exactly like teenage boys. I couldn't break them, I'm not convinced I didn't side with them at times, but I doubt the woman who could write "I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other" would have been troubled by any of us. 

LONGBOURN by Jo Baker: the Servants' Story. Review by Penny Dolan.

I overlooked LONGBOURN, the novel by Jo Baker, when it was published in 2013. 

However, Joan Lennon’s recent History Girls video-post, where the adept presenter needed help with dressing herself in her Regency Lady garments, brought out all my usual niggles.  

Who did the work involved in the delicate and many-buttoned dresses? Who looked after all the laundry and the house and the meals? Who ran the Bennet household for them?  

 Those questions, and a fragment of conversation, reminded me about  LONGBOURN, the novel, once more so I found a copy just in time to read it as part of the History Girls celebration of the 200^th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death,and to offer some of my reflections

LONGBOURN runs alongside the plot of Pride and Prejudice, but Baker is telling the stories of the servants at Longbourn House: housemaid Sarah, housekeeper Mrs Hill, Mr Hill and eleven year old Polly, or as Austen describes them:

"the butler . . Mrs Hill and the two housemaids"

The novel does not focuses on Elizabeth and Darcy, but on Sarah's developing relationship with the mysterious new stable-hand, James Smith.

The book constantly reminds us of the impact of the weather on those lives and times. We first meet sixteen year old Sarah early on a January morning, bringing water in from the outside pump, ready to start on the laundry. Later, as Lydia sips her sugared milk and complains to Miss Hill in the kitchen: 

 Next door, down the step to the scullery, Sarah leaned over the washboard, rubbing at a stained hem. The petticoat had been three inches deep in mud when she’d retrieved it from the girls’ bedroom floor and had had a night’s soaking in lye already: the soap was not shifting the mark but it was biting into her hands, already chapped and chillblained and making them sting.

Sarah’s rough hands seemed to me to be an almost constant symbol within the novel, making those petticoats seem less carefree garments, and highlighting the fact that the Bennett girls are happy to drop a newly-pressed silk dress on the floor, and to believe that their dainty stitchery and silk-thread embroidery is “work”. 

Meanwhile, the real work goes on, inside and out and when James appears and takes on some of the heavy work, his strength and thoughtfulness is welcomed. The first hint of his good nature is when Sarah wakes and find water in the boiler and the fire lit.

All the way through, the Longbourn servants – housemaid Sarah, housekeeper Mrs Hill, Mr Hill the butler and eleven year old Polly - have little choice but to accept orders. Even so, they seem to be tolerant and proud of “their” family: Mrs Hill talks fondly of the girls “innocence”, while making sure that Sarah remembers that a servant life must be different.

The book also shows that Longbourn is also home for the servants. Sarah and young Polly, both brought there as destitute children, have been trained by Mrs Hill and Longbourn is their only security. We see Longbourn as a usually-kindly household, where the servants know there will be food and shelter, and a sense of the beauty and quiet in their isolated Hertfordshire location.

 Sarah, however, is at an age when her own eyes are opening to aspects of society beyond Longbourn’s fields. She starts to fret about the limitations of her situation and the extreme reticence of James. Sent into town, Sarah is as excited as the Bennet girls when the red-coated Militia arrive in town. However, unlike those young ladies, she witnesses the brutal flogging of a young “deserter” at the the street barracks, a moment that suggests something about James’ behaviour to the reader but not to Sarah. 

After Darcy and Bingley's arrival at Netherfield, Sarah becomes fascinated by Ptolemy, Bingley's elegant, well-mannered black servant and the distinct attention he shows her. Brought over from the family’s sugar plantation, Ptolemy has learned to use his looks to advance his position, but shocks Sarah with his real attitudes on the night of the ball.

Later on, after coming across the rigid hierarchy of servants in a grand house and meeting Ptolemy again, she looks again at her life back at Longbourn.

LONGBOURN has several memorable scenes, apart from the laundry as we step into the setting. One is the coach journey from rural Hertfordshire into to a dirty, disreputable London and on to : the reader does not sit inside the carriage but outside with Sarah, strapped to a kind of shelf and braving the weather – and also likely to be toppled on her neck if the carriage overturns. Another vivid account comes in a later part when, suddenly stepping outside the book’s setting, Baker describes James Smith’s horrific experiences during the flawed Spanish campaign against Napoleon, a flashback that explains much of his story and character. The difference between the power of the commissioned officer and that of the ordinary soldier is brutally demonstrated, both in the field and during the flogging in Meriton.

At times, I was half-amused by my reactions to the novel. For example, I felt a sense of imposition when Sarah is sent out into a torrent to buy last-minute “slipper roses” for the girls to wear at a ball. At another moment, I was recoiling: Mr Hill the butler regularly spits on the silver forks to polish them for the table. Later on, an account of Mrs Bennet’s early married life, her many pregnancies, and another significant matter, offered a different understanding of Mr and Mrs Bennett and their unhappy relationship.

One theme that comes through strongly in LONGBOURN is the precariousness of people’s social situation at that time, and at all levels. 

When Mr Collins visits his inheritance, the Longbourn servants know their own future employment will depends on him noticing them favourably, and when Elizabeth’s refuses him, we see this action could damage them as well as the Bennett family. As Baker reveals an age when inheritance and preferment mattered so much, her drawing of Mr Collins is much more sympathetic, certainly than some tv adaptations. 

On the other hand, seen from the servants' knowledge, Wickham is shown as a far worse character: predatory, full of cruelty and vice. One fears for fifteen-year-old Lydia, and sees her concept - and ours - of a romantic world undercut by a dreadful reality.

Although the story eventually circles away from Longbourn into other territory, it ends with a bold search, an eventual reunion, and hints at the changes coming towards the rural rolling landscape of England. 

 I did not hear much of an Austen voice - unless you recognise the quote below - that is there to be admired in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, but I felt that LONGBOURN was well worth reading for the glimpse the novel gave into eighteenth century society and as an antidote to Regency romance. 

"There is nothing like the imminence of a parting to make people unduly fond of other people."

Penny Dolan

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Six of the Best Austen Adaptations by Katherine Clements

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the film is never as good as the book. That hasn’t stopped millions of Austen fans enjoying countless movie and TV versions of her novels. I can’t prove it, but Jane must be one of our most adapted authors, along with Dickens and Shakespeare. She’s become the undisputed queen of costume drama; the slate of BBC adaptations alone reads like a history of British broadcasting.

It all began in 1924, when the proposal scene from Pride and Prejudice was aired on the BBC’s first radio station to an exclusive London audience. The first filmed version came 14 years later – a lavish affair, broadcast live from Alexandra Palace in May 1938, scheduled in the now traditional Sunday evening slot. Sadly, this performance (pictured above) and many other live broadcasts from the 30s and 40s are now lost. Videotape recording wasn’t possible until the 50s so the earliest BBC adaptations we have in their original form come from the 1970s.

There is a delightful film from the BBC with lots more information about those lost Austens here.

The most famous early adaptation must be MGM’s 1940 production of Pride and Prejudice, starring Greer Garson as Lizzie and a brooding Laurence Olivier as Darcy. With an occasionally hilarious script and dubious costumes, this is Austen given the Golden Age of Hollywood treatment, well before matters of authenticity were a consideration. Still, it’s essential viewing for Austen completists. The fabulous trailer gives a flavour…

Through the 70s and 80s, regular remakes were largely low budget TV movies or series, but the 90s brought a resurgence of interest in the author, with both the popular BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and movie hit, Sense and Sensibility, penned by Emma Thompson. 1995 was a good year for Austen fans and brought Jane’s work to a whole new generation.

Since then we’ve seen modern takes on the novels, such as Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) and Clueless (1995); sequels, prequels or homages like Death Comes to Pemberley (2013) and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016); and films about Jane’s life, like Becoming Jane (2007) and Miss Austen Regrets (2007). It’s testament to the timelessness of Austen’s work that public appetite is endless. And I haven’t even touched on theatre and musical productions, of which there have been many. There’s even a feature film of Sanditon, Jane’s final unfinished novel, in production, though it seems to have stalled at the time of writing.

Jane Austen means different things to different people. I go back to both the books and the adaptations like an old comfort blanket, but it’s not just nostalgia or escapism; every time, and at different stages of my own life, I’ve found new understanding and significance beneath the romantic veneer. So, in honour of the lady herself, here are a few of my personal favourites…

Pride and Prejudice (BBC TV, 1995)

Well, it had to be, didn’t it?! This version rightly deserves its place on just about every ‘best costume drama’ list you’ll find. OK, so the acting is overwrought in places, and some of the characters are a bit clichéd, but this classic, with Colin Firth as Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennett, holds its head high above any other adaptation. There’s a respectable BBC version from 1980, and the 2005 film is not totally without merit, but Firth’s lake swimming scene remains a defining pop-culture moment that turned a whole generation on to Austen.

Sense and Sensibility (Film, 1995)

Emma Thompson won her second Oscar for the screenplay of this 1995 movie version of Sense and Sensibility. It was a labour of love and the result is pitch perfect. Sumptuous visuals and star turns from Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman and others make this a must-see. Funny, moving, warm and witty, it captures the spirit and the underlying message of the novel. Thompson’s Screenplay and Diaries offer an entertaining insight into the making of the film and are great addition for superfans.

Emma (ITV, 1996)

It’s a toss up between this version and the 2009 BBC version scripted by Sandy Welch and staring Jonny Lee Miller and Romola Garai. Both are very good, but I think I prefer the portrayal that Kate Beckinsale gives of Austen’s misguided heroine. The 1996 Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle was entertaining enough, but a bit too treacly for me.

Sense and Sensibility (BBC, 2008)

Penned by Andrew Davies (who also wrote the 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice), this high quality adaptation comes a very close second to the movie mentioned above. It’s quieter, subtler and closer to the book. It looks beautiful and the performances are excellent, especially from Hattie Morahan as Elinor, who apparently refused to watch Emma Thompson’s earlier portrayal for fear it would influence her too much. I think it’s fair to say that David Morrissey as Colonel Brandon, good though he is, can’t hold a candle to Rickman.

Clueless (Film, 1995)

Not a traditional take but a brilliant one. Transporting the plot of Emma to a group of moneyed teenagers in Beverley Hills in the 1990’s was a stroke of genius by director and writer Amy Heckerling. The cultural references might be of its time but, just like Austen's novels, it's smart, witty and satirical, and has well-deserved cult status. I like to think Jane would have approved.

Love and Friendship (Film, 2016)

A recent addition but one I enjoyed very much, down to a razor-sharp script, gorgeous production design and a great performance by Kate Beckinsale. As Lady Susan, she of Austen’s often overlooked epistolary novel, Beckinsale delivers an anti-heroine with wonderful complexity and screen magnetism. Director, Whit Stillman, published an accompanying novelisation of the story (a brave move?) entitled Love &Friendship: In Which Jane Austen's Lady Susan Vernon is Entirely Vindicated. A great example of how Austen’s work continues to be reimagined.

Persuasion (BBC, 1995)

To my mind we are still waiting for a really good adaptation of Persuasion but this version starring Amanda Root and Ciàran Hinds is the best to date. This originally aired on BBC Two in 1995 – what a year that was for Austen adaptations! The global success of Sense and Sensibility increased interest in all things Austen, and Persuasion was given a cinema release in the US and won several Baftas. This adaption leans heavily on the central performances, which I like for their realism and subtlety.

So there you have it. Which are your favourites?

A final note: This is my last post for History Girls as, due to other commitments, I must regretfully step down. Thanks to everyone who has read and commented on my posts and to my fellow History Girls: It’s been fun but, to paraphrase Mr Bennett, I have delighted you long enough!

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