The Genius of Jane Austen: Her Love of Theatre and Why She Is a Hit in Hollywood

The Genius of Jane Austen: Her Love of Theatre and Why She Is a Hit in Hollywood
Paula Byrne

A radical look at Jane Austen as you’ve never seen her – as a lover of farce, comic theatre and juvenilia. The Genius of Jane Austen celebrates Britain’s favourite novelist 200 years after her death and explores why her books make such awesome movies, time after time.Jane Austen loved the theatre. She learned much of her art from a long tradition of English comic drama and took joyous participation in amateur theatricals and her visits to the theatre in London and Bath. Her juvenilia, then ‘Sense and Sensibility’, ‘Pride and Prejudice’, ‘Mansfield Park’ and ‘Emma’ were shaped by the arts of theatrical comedy.Her admiration for drama’s dialogue, characterisation, plotting, exits and entrances is why she has been dramatised so successfully on screen in the last twenty years – and these versions are at the centre of her continuing fame, culminating in her celebration on £10 note.From the stage adaptations of Austen’s novels (including one called ‘Miss Elizabeth Bennet’ by A. A. Milne) to modern classics, including the BBC ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Persuasion’, Emma Thompson’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’, and the phenomenally brilliant and successful ‘Clueless’, ‘The Genius of Jane Austen’ presents an Austen not of prim manners and genteel calm, but filled with wild comedy and outrageous behaviour.

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Copyright (#u6c61bf41-1421-5eb1-9e41-70428d3f08ef)

William Collins

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017

Copyright © Paula Byrne 2002, 2017

Cover design by Heike Schüssler

Paula Byrne asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780008225698

Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9780008225674

Version: 2018-06-06

Dedication (#u6c61bf41-1421-5eb1-9e41-70428d3f08ef)

For Jonathan

Contents

Cover (#u659eea81-9993-53c7-bc75-1f3d87fb609f)

Title Page (#u3ae7091e-5c9f-502d-b27d-2b19bafb6a33)

Copyright (#u63bf7963-6313-55a5-998a-a47dd3393cc7)

Dedication (#u0d94ed03-4342-585b-9ee3-0fa67da60fed)

Foreword to the New Edition (#ufcbe6f12-69cd-57ed-b7e3-794161b83b05)

Acknowledgements (#uc2b881f9-822a-5e77-987b-a5f6774da683)

Abbreviations (#u9d57dc35-62f8-5112-b74c-878af7de6702)

Introduction (#u501062c8-9583-539d-a7c2-5153ab70bc3b)

Part One: The Novelist and the Theatre (#ub0186e52-2461-5c40-9037-097010cf5f0b)

1 Private Theatricals (#uf53c9bdd-35ed-5461-8c0a-a99779db9116)

2 The Professional Theatre (#u559c7111-7bf6-544c-8d8f-f33ef5635a0d)

3 Plays and Actors (#u09e30a44-c1cd-5b1b-b765-ba38162f2efa)

Part Two: The Theatre and the Novels (#u58fd4df2-a511-559f-b87a-e75c2016a58f)

4 Early Works (#ud997b420-253e-50da-9aca-87bf2b54cde5)

5 From Play to Novel (#litres_trial_promo)

6 Sense and Sensibility (#litres_trial_promo)

7 Pride and Prejudice (#litres_trial_promo)

8 Lovers’ Vows (#litres_trial_promo)

9 Mansfield Park (#litres_trial_promo)

10 Emma (#litres_trial_promo)

11 Why She Is a Hit in Hollywood (#litres_trial_promo)

List of Illustrations (#litres_trial_promo)

Picture Section (#litres_trial_promo)

Notes (#litres_trial_promo)

Bibliography (#litres_trial_promo)

Index (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Paula Byrne (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)