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.
(#u6c61bf41-1421-5eb1-9e41-70428d3f08ef)
Copyright (#u6c61bf41-1421-5eb1-9e41-70428d3f08ef)
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com (http://www.williamcollinsbooks.com)
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
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
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)