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- This is the world of
a Jane Austen novel,

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an elegant Georgian drawing room.

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I could just imagine Emma
Woodhouse taking tea,

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Anne Elliot reading poetry,

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or even Mr. Darcy

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warming his britches before the fire.

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It seems a safe, domesticated landscape.

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And it's the setting for his
stories of the court ships

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of intelligent, polite

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and privileged young ladies.

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But why on Earth are millions of us

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still reading these period romances?

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How has this genteel fiction

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become a 21st century global phenomenon?

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Over the last 200 years,

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Austen's books have traveled a long way,

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from the libraries of aristocrats

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to cheap railway bookstores.

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- She produced fiction,

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which had a sort of a self-possession

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and a technical audacity,

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which was unparalleled
anywhere else in Europe.

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- She was adored by soldiers

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and she found stardom
on stage and onscreen.

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- She goes from niche to mainstream.

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- What's more in every era,

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her readers have found
something personal, important,

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and new in her words.

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- No one has known how to make love,

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read so important as she has.

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- As a historian and an unashamed fan,

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I'm fascinated by the
story of how an anonymous

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minor novelist in her own lifetime

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became celebrated today

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as our very best love writer.

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This is Fort Worth, Texas.

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And if you wanted to know

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just how successful Jane Austen is today,

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hold your horses and look no further

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because this weekend,

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the Stetsons have been
outnumbered by the Bomics,

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as Fort Worth plays host
to the Jane Austen Society

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of North America's Annual convention.

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The biggest international celebration

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for an author whose fame ranked
second only to Shakespeare.

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This gloriously eccentric hotel convention

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demonstrates the rampant commercialization

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of the world Jane Austen made.

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There's an extraordinary
array of merchandise,

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spin-offs from the Austen brand.

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"Jane and the Damned".

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Austen has chick flicks.

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"Clueless", "Emma" updated
to an American high school.

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And here we have Bollywood's,
"Bride and Prejudice".

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It's an astounding phenomenon.

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But underneath all the
dressing up and the role-play,

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the spin-offs and the merchandise,

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there are plenty of
committed Austen readers.

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- I liked the way she characterizes people

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and the people that she writes about,

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you can still see today.

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- I think anyone who's ever been in love

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will find an equal in one of her novels.

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- She has a wonderful, ironic tone

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that makes me think

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and gives me a sense of history

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and romance and great literature.

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- Here in Texas, Jane
Austen, the commercial brand,

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dances hand in hand with an
appreciation of Jane Austen,

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a serious novelist.

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And it's this partnership

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that gives Austen a unique position

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in the world of literature.

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At Sotheby's in London,

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the International Sale Rooms,

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Brand Austen is the big
attraction at today's auction.

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- 220?

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240?

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260-

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- This is the sale of a
rare Jane Austen fragment.

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In her short life, Austen only
produced six complete novels

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and every surviving scrap of her writing

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is of immense interest,

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especially if the manuscript
is in her own hand.

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Here are 60 precious pages
of an uncompleted novel

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written while she was living in Bath.

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Earlier on, I was lucky
enough to be given a peak

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at the manuscript before
it went onto the hammer.

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I've never seen a Jane
Austen manuscript before.

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- Yeah, it is a wonderful thing.

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It's so exciting to actually see,

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00:05:01,780 --> 00:05:02,620
see her handwriting.

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And of course, not just her handwriting,

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it's not just a letter.

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It's actually a literary manuscript

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and not just a literary manuscript,

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but a working manuscript,
as you can see it,

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careful corrections.

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- This is the only
manuscript draft, isn't it,

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of her unfinished novel?

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- Yeah, that's right.

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- "The Watsons".
- Yeah, yeah.

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- It's a very tantalizing
fragment, isn't it?

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- Yes.

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- Your lordship thinks,

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we always have our own way.

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That is a point on which
ladies and gentlemen

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long disagreed,

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but without pretending to decide it,

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I may say that there
are some circumstances

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which even women cannot control.

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Female economy will do
a great deal, my Lord,

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but it cannot turn a small
income into a large one.

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Absolutely.

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I think what's really most important

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about this piece of work is it's content.

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And that seems to be quite explosive

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because there's a real
angry voice in this,

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which is overlaid with
more elegance, I think,

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in the other novels,

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Who do you think are going
to be the big bidders?

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- I mean obviously, I can't-

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- Obviously, I can't.

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I can't.

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What sort of figure do you expect to get?

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- The estimate is a 200 to 300,000 pounds.

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- That's 650 in the room.

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680, thank you.

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700,000, thank you.

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- It's beginning
to look as if Gabriel

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was being ever so slightly cautious.

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- 720, thank you.

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750, thank you.

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- There are two very committed bidders.

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And we've now reached nearly
three times the estimate.

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- Yeah, 800,000, thank you.

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Last chance there, at 800,000.

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820, I have now.

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850.

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No, it's in the room.

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On the aisle, anybody else?

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At 850.

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Last chance, against your...

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No regrets, at 850.

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Yours, thank you.

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- "The Watsons" has just sold
for a stunning 850,000 pounds.

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So that's three times the estimate.

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I think that's an amazing achievement

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for a woman who struggled
in genteel poverty.

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At her death, her manuscripts
were burnt or scattered

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or just given away.

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And now, she's provoked

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just for a little fragment of a novel,

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a global bidding war.

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And the buyer who saved the
manuscript for the nation

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was non other than the
Bodleian Library in Oxford.

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It's a huge price to pay

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and clear proof that Austen's
academic status today

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is just as potent as her commercial brand.

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So how did Austen become
our national treasure?

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To find the answer, you
have to look at the history

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of how she was read.

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Who was reading her and why?

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The very first people to read
Jane Austen were her family.

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We know that Jane Austen
was clever and precocious.

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She was writing by the age of 12,

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but then she was born
into a big bookish family.

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All her brothers and her
beloved sister, Cassandra,

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all of them loved reading,
rereading, reading aloud,

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writing, drawing, and amateur theatricals.

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- Come on!

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- The Austens
adored putting on plays

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for family and friends.

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- Let's turn back quickly.

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- Very well.

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But hasn't this walk
been invigorating, ow!

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- And even today,

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the locals still relish
of this alfresco theater.

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- I think I've twisted my ankle.

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- Would you allow me to
offer my services, madame?

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- The teenage Jane was theatrical,

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irreverent and prolific,

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dashing off romantic parodies and satires

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for the entertainment
of her clever siblings

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and bookish relatives.

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By early twenties,

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Jane Austen had completed
drafts of two novels,

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"First Impressions" and
"Elinor And Marianne".

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But it would be another 14 years

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and numerous disappointments

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before she was finally published.

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- "Elinor And Marianne"
became "Sense and Sensibility"

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and first went on sale 200
years ago in October, 1811.

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- Oh sir, how may I thank you?

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May I ask whom I'm so obliged?

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- His name, he replied, was...

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- Willoughby, madam,

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00:09:51,910 --> 00:09:53,370
currently of .

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- His manly beauty,

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and more than common gracefulness

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were instantly the theme
of general admiration

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and the laugh, which his gallantry raised

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00:10:02,210 --> 00:10:05,110
against Marianne received
particular spirit

206
00:10:05,110 --> 00:10:08,060
from his exterior attractions.

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00:10:08,060 --> 00:10:11,600
Marianne, herself, had seen
less of his person than the rest

208
00:10:11,600 --> 00:10:12,800
for the confusion,

209
00:10:12,800 --> 00:10:16,540
which crimsoned over her
face on his lifting her up,

210
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had robbed her of the
power of regarding him

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after their entering of the house.

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But the people who first
enjoyed these words

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00:10:25,440 --> 00:10:28,480
had no idea who was writing them.

214
00:10:28,480 --> 00:10:31,800
Why do you think Jane Austen
published anonymously?

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00:10:31,800 --> 00:10:34,580
- Well, people say that it
was because she was so modest

216
00:10:34,580 --> 00:10:35,600
and unassuming.
- No.

217
00:10:35,600 --> 00:10:37,150
- Which is bologna actually,

218
00:10:37,150 --> 00:10:39,380
because Sir Walter Scott

219
00:10:39,380 --> 00:10:41,670
who was the bestselling
novelist of the age,

220
00:10:41,670 --> 00:10:43,420
also published anonymously.

221
00:10:43,420 --> 00:10:45,140
- So it's a polite convention only then?

222
00:10:45,140 --> 00:10:46,840
- Yeah, it's a polite convention,

223
00:10:46,840 --> 00:10:50,530
which enabled her to have
quite a lot of fun actually,

224
00:10:50,530 --> 00:10:52,780
because of course, people guessed a lot.

225
00:10:52,780 --> 00:10:54,520
A lady in the village

226
00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:56,800
and Mrs. Ben came 'round

227
00:10:56,800 --> 00:10:59,629
and "Pride and Prejudice"
had just been delivered

228
00:10:59,629 --> 00:11:03,130
and Jane Austen and her
mum took turns reading out

229
00:11:03,130 --> 00:11:05,730
about half of the novel
over several hours.

230
00:11:05,730 --> 00:11:08,330
And Mrs. Ben was delighted
and said how brilliant

231
00:11:08,330 --> 00:11:09,360
the author must be.

232
00:11:09,360 --> 00:11:11,333
And Jane Austen didn't tell
her that it was herself.

233
00:11:11,333 --> 00:11:14,510
I think she quite like
those sorts of games.

234
00:11:14,510 --> 00:11:16,740
- But, calling it "By a Lady",

235
00:11:16,740 --> 00:11:18,010
it's not utterly anonymous.

236
00:11:18,010 --> 00:11:21,010
So she makes it clear
that it's a female author.

237
00:11:21,010 --> 00:11:24,550
Do you think that affects the way readers

238
00:11:24,550 --> 00:11:25,960
would have viewed the novel at the time?

239
00:11:25,960 --> 00:11:29,120
Do you think women are more
likely to buy a novel by a lady?

240
00:11:29,120 --> 00:11:32,270
- I think, saying by a
lady on the title page

241
00:11:32,270 --> 00:11:35,000
did affect people's expectations.

242
00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:35,840
So I think they would have known

243
00:11:35,840 --> 00:11:38,330
that it was an advertisement

244
00:11:38,330 --> 00:11:41,980
for the kind of product they were getting.

245
00:11:41,980 --> 00:11:45,300
They weren't gonna get roistering scenes

246
00:11:45,300 --> 00:11:46,990
of sort of sexual impropriety.

247
00:11:46,990 --> 00:11:48,820
- So would they expect, what,

248
00:11:48,820 --> 00:11:51,890
a comedy of manners or a
romantic comedy in modern terms?

249
00:11:51,890 --> 00:11:54,650
- I think, when you see
"By a Lady" on the cover,

250
00:11:54,650 --> 00:11:57,570
what you expect is really
a tale of courtship.

251
00:11:57,570 --> 00:12:01,040
You expect a story about a young woman

252
00:12:01,040 --> 00:12:03,740
who is not married at the
beginning of the novel

253
00:12:03,740 --> 00:12:05,299
and is married at the end.

254
00:12:09,030 --> 00:12:13,370
- So who read that first edition
of "Sense and Sensibility"?

255
00:12:13,370 --> 00:12:17,400
Although 750 copies were sold
in the next couple of years,

256
00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:20,133
there aren't many clues
about who actually bought it,

257
00:12:21,350 --> 00:12:24,830
but luckily, there are
letters from one woman,

258
00:12:24,830 --> 00:12:28,530
Countess Despencer that prove
that "Sense and Sensibility"

259
00:12:28,530 --> 00:12:30,855
was read with pleasure in this house.

260
00:12:37,855 --> 00:12:40,920
Northrop is the breathtaking
Northamptonshire home

261
00:12:40,920 --> 00:12:42,414
of the Spencer family.

262
00:12:45,600 --> 00:12:47,480
I went to meet Earl Spencer

263
00:12:47,480 --> 00:12:51,340
to talk to him about his regency
relative, Lady Bessborough

264
00:12:51,340 --> 00:12:52,967
who wrote to a friend,

265
00:12:52,967 --> 00:12:54,887
"'Have you read "Sense and Sensibility'?

266
00:12:54,887 --> 00:12:56,267
"It is a clever novel.

267
00:12:56,267 --> 00:12:59,440
"They were full of it at all at Northorp."

268
00:12:59,440 --> 00:13:00,910
- Well, Lady Bessborough
is actually the lady

269
00:13:00,910 --> 00:13:02,520
in the middle of the portrait there.

270
00:13:02,520 --> 00:13:05,410
And she's one of the three
Spencers of that generation,

271
00:13:05,410 --> 00:13:07,030
the most famous one being
the one on the left,

272
00:13:07,030 --> 00:13:09,900
her sister, Georgina,
Duchess of Devonshire.

273
00:13:09,900 --> 00:13:13,270
And Harriet was very much
her handmaiden and companion.

274
00:13:13,270 --> 00:13:15,960
And we know she was great
fun, very, very amiable,

275
00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:18,850
lovely, bright, sparkly person, Harriet,

276
00:13:18,850 --> 00:13:20,940
and intensely loyal.

277
00:13:20,940 --> 00:13:25,050
- I imagine this kind of
group of tufts sitting around,

278
00:13:25,050 --> 00:13:26,500
reading, perhaps reading aloud,

279
00:13:26,500 --> 00:13:28,950
have you any sense of
how the reading was done

280
00:13:28,950 --> 00:13:29,783
in a room like this?

281
00:13:29,783 --> 00:13:30,620
- I have, I mean,

282
00:13:30,620 --> 00:13:33,770
I know from the diary entries
from my family at the time

283
00:13:33,770 --> 00:13:36,500
that reading was taken
incredibly seriously.

284
00:13:36,500 --> 00:13:37,890
Lady Bessborough and her family,

285
00:13:37,890 --> 00:13:40,000
when they lived here, when they came here,

286
00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:43,350
it was a buzzing, fizzing
place of new ideas.

287
00:13:43,350 --> 00:13:46,480
You know, this was not some
stuffy aristocratic outpost.

288
00:13:46,480 --> 00:13:49,690
This was a salon with
a crackling atmosphere

289
00:13:49,690 --> 00:13:51,710
of intellect and discovery.

290
00:13:51,710 --> 00:13:55,300
- Lady Bessborough
notoriously had a long affair

291
00:13:55,300 --> 00:13:57,190
with a much younger man

292
00:13:57,190 --> 00:13:59,140
who then married her niece.

293
00:13:59,140 --> 00:14:02,560
You know, this is quite racy behavior.

294
00:14:02,560 --> 00:14:05,940
So I wonder how they regard
the proprieties really

295
00:14:05,940 --> 00:14:08,360
of a novel like "Sense and Sensibility".

296
00:14:08,360 --> 00:14:11,640
- Well Lady Bessborough
did have a racy love life,

297
00:14:11,640 --> 00:14:13,493
but I think that, you know,

298
00:14:13,493 --> 00:14:17,110
you can have an unconventional love life

299
00:14:17,110 --> 00:14:19,590
and still appreciate that
the more formal settings

300
00:14:19,590 --> 00:14:21,320
of Jane Austen's novels

301
00:14:21,320 --> 00:14:23,410
and the part of romance

302
00:14:23,410 --> 00:14:27,150
and marriage and social
advancement in them.

303
00:14:27,150 --> 00:14:28,720
- I think there must
be a strong possibility

304
00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:32,610
that the women in the family
sympathized with Marianne,

305
00:14:32,610 --> 00:14:34,260
because though they're aristocratic women,

306
00:14:34,260 --> 00:14:37,720
they still have very constrained choices.

307
00:14:37,720 --> 00:14:40,540
So I think they could
really engage with a novel,

308
00:14:40,540 --> 00:14:43,870
which is about limited options.

309
00:14:43,870 --> 00:14:45,737
- I think the fact that Lady Bessborough

310
00:14:45,737 --> 00:14:48,250
and her sister were aristocrats

311
00:14:48,250 --> 00:14:52,530
is sort of less important
than the gender, yes.

312
00:14:52,530 --> 00:14:53,810
Lady Bessborough and her sister,

313
00:14:53,810 --> 00:14:57,210
were both paired off with
incredibly eligible men

314
00:14:57,210 --> 00:14:59,020
who they didn't like or love.

315
00:14:59,020 --> 00:15:01,210
And so the whole business of marriage

316
00:15:01,210 --> 00:15:05,690
and of aligning marriage
with social class,

317
00:15:05,690 --> 00:15:07,795
they would have understood
that, very, very keenly.

318
00:15:10,890 --> 00:15:12,640
- In the time of Jane Austen,

319
00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:14,680
courtship was the defining test

320
00:15:14,680 --> 00:15:16,680
in the life of a young woman,

321
00:15:16,680 --> 00:15:20,470
but she was supposed to be
passive and self-controlled.

322
00:15:20,470 --> 00:15:24,060
So how could she find out
whether a man was worthy?

323
00:15:24,060 --> 00:15:27,460
Austen nails the desperate
torment of that struggle

324
00:15:27,460 --> 00:15:29,473
with masterful understatement.

325
00:15:31,170 --> 00:15:33,230
- Marianne, only half dressed,

326
00:15:33,230 --> 00:15:35,510
was kneeling against
one of the window seats

327
00:15:35,510 --> 00:15:37,130
for the sake of all the little light

328
00:15:37,130 --> 00:15:38,820
she could command from it.

329
00:15:38,820 --> 00:15:41,620
And writing as fast as a
continual flow of tears

330
00:15:41,620 --> 00:15:42,470
would permit her.

331
00:15:43,470 --> 00:15:44,950
In this situation,

332
00:15:44,950 --> 00:15:48,450
Elinor, rouse from sleep
by her agitation and sobs,

333
00:15:48,450 --> 00:15:50,060
first perceived her.

334
00:15:50,060 --> 00:15:52,040
And after observing her for a few moments

335
00:15:52,040 --> 00:15:53,630
with silent anxiety,

336
00:15:53,630 --> 00:15:56,700
said in a tone of the most
considerate gentleness,

337
00:15:56,700 --> 00:15:59,130
Marianne, may I ask?

338
00:15:59,130 --> 00:16:00,840
No, Elinor, she replied.

339
00:16:00,840 --> 00:16:02,020
Ask nothing.

340
00:16:02,020 --> 00:16:03,363
You will soon know all.

341
00:16:04,360 --> 00:16:07,340
The sort of desperate calmness
with which this was said

342
00:16:07,340 --> 00:16:09,730
lasted no longer than while she spoke

343
00:16:09,730 --> 00:16:11,460
and was immediately followed by a return

344
00:16:11,460 --> 00:16:14,050
of the same excessive affliction.

345
00:16:14,050 --> 00:16:17,000
It was some minutes before she
could go on with her letter

346
00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:18,540
and the frequent bursts of grief,

347
00:16:18,540 --> 00:16:20,770
which still obliged her at intervals

348
00:16:20,770 --> 00:16:22,410
to withhold her pen,

349
00:16:22,410 --> 00:16:23,930
were proofs enough of her feeling

350
00:16:23,930 --> 00:16:27,220
how more than probable it
was that she was writing

351
00:16:27,220 --> 00:16:29,243
for the last time to Willoughby.

352
00:16:32,120 --> 00:16:34,270
- The story of
"Marianne and Elinor"

353
00:16:34,270 --> 00:16:35,780
and their broken hearts

354
00:16:35,780 --> 00:16:38,780
was appreciated by an audience
well beyond the libraries

355
00:16:38,780 --> 00:16:39,913
of the aristocracy.

356
00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:43,540
Books were expensive,

357
00:16:43,540 --> 00:16:46,360
but thanks to the popular
circulating libraries,

358
00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:49,400
Austen's novels also made
their way into the hands

359
00:16:49,400 --> 00:16:51,310
of a wider public.

360
00:16:51,310 --> 00:16:53,083
So how successful was she?

361
00:16:54,380 --> 00:16:57,760
- I would say that by the
standards of Jane Austen's day,

362
00:16:57,760 --> 00:16:59,010
in her own lifetime,

363
00:16:59,010 --> 00:17:02,000
in that very short period of six years,

364
00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:05,870
between her first published
novel and her death,

365
00:17:05,870 --> 00:17:07,542
she's really very successful.

366
00:17:07,542 --> 00:17:09,100
- Oh, you think?
- Oh, absolutely.

367
00:17:09,100 --> 00:17:12,270
She publishes her first novel,
"Sense and Sensibility",

368
00:17:12,270 --> 00:17:14,760
at her own expense.
- Hmm.

369
00:17:14,760 --> 00:17:17,423
- That means she gets the profits from it.

370
00:17:18,280 --> 00:17:23,120
And she earns 250 pounds
from "Sense and Sensibility".

371
00:17:23,120 --> 00:17:26,570
And I mean, you don't actually
have to even compare it

372
00:17:26,570 --> 00:17:28,420
to other writers earnings.

373
00:17:28,420 --> 00:17:31,420
This is a time where perhaps the income

374
00:17:31,420 --> 00:17:33,530
for a professional gentleman

375
00:17:33,530 --> 00:17:36,080
who's doing quite well
might be 500 pounds a year.

376
00:17:36,080 --> 00:17:38,441
So that's a really
substantial sum of money.

377
00:17:41,440 --> 00:17:43,640
- Her literary career taking off,

378
00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:47,467
Austen published three more
novels in quick succession,

379
00:17:47,467 --> 00:17:49,927
"Pride and Prejudice", in 1813,

380
00:17:49,927 --> 00:17:52,430
"Mansfield Park", in 1814,

381
00:17:52,430 --> 00:17:55,200
and "Emma", in 1815.

382
00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:58,537
But before she could see her
last two manuscripts in print,

383
00:17:58,537 --> 00:18:01,100
"Northanger Abbey and Persuasion",

384
00:18:01,100 --> 00:18:02,763
her health began to fail.

385
00:18:04,580 --> 00:18:08,450
In 1817, Jane died in her sister's arms

386
00:18:08,450 --> 00:18:10,063
at the age of only 41.

387
00:18:15,640 --> 00:18:19,973
She was buried here in the
splendor of Winchester Cathedral,

388
00:18:20,900 --> 00:18:22,660
but don't get the wrong idea.

389
00:18:22,660 --> 00:18:25,380
This was no grand farewell.

390
00:18:25,380 --> 00:18:28,060
Whatever success Austen had enjoyed

391
00:18:28,060 --> 00:18:31,423
was certainly not translated
into public recognition.

392
00:18:32,430 --> 00:18:35,170
Her early morning funeral was discreet

393
00:18:35,170 --> 00:18:36,443
and sparsely attended.

394
00:18:40,270 --> 00:18:41,593
This is her grave.

395
00:18:43,564 --> 00:18:44,397
What's down in there?

396
00:18:44,397 --> 00:18:46,433
She's actually buried beneath here.

397
00:18:47,420 --> 00:18:49,343
In memory of Jane Austen.

398
00:18:51,450 --> 00:18:55,763
Young daughter of the late
George Austen of Steventon.

399
00:18:56,750 --> 00:18:58,070
What's she remembered for?

400
00:18:58,070 --> 00:18:59,673
She's remembered as a daughter,

401
00:19:00,630 --> 00:19:02,740
as a true Christian,

402
00:19:02,740 --> 00:19:04,643
for the benevolence of her heart,

403
00:19:06,640 --> 00:19:09,540
the sweetness of her temper

404
00:19:11,260 --> 00:19:15,323
and the extraordinary
endowments of her mind.

405
00:19:16,460 --> 00:19:17,890
But that's it,

406
00:19:17,890 --> 00:19:19,623
nothing of her great novels.

407
00:19:21,280 --> 00:19:24,393
So it seems at the very
moment of her death,

408
00:19:25,420 --> 00:19:26,770
her great achievement

409
00:19:27,700 --> 00:19:30,700
and her fragile prestige as a writer

410
00:19:30,700 --> 00:19:32,686
is going to perish with her.

411
00:19:35,870 --> 00:19:38,080
Within three years of her death,

412
00:19:38,080 --> 00:19:41,630
Austen had fallen out of
fashion and out of print

413
00:19:41,630 --> 00:19:43,550
and unsold copies of her stories

414
00:19:43,550 --> 00:19:47,670
of polite rural society was
sold off by the publishers

415
00:19:47,670 --> 00:19:52,346
at knockdown prices.

416
00:19:57,016 --> 00:19:59,470
So what on Earth happened?

417
00:19:59,470 --> 00:20:02,920
Well, the main culprit was romanticism.

418
00:20:02,920 --> 00:20:05,743
Literally, fashion was turning
against the drawing room.

419
00:20:07,297 --> 00:20:12,020
By the 1840s, it was dramatic
landscapes and wide horizons,

420
00:20:12,020 --> 00:20:16,103
fiery desire and rebellion
that sat the pulses racing.

421
00:20:17,110 --> 00:20:21,080
And no woman captured
humid passion on the page

422
00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:22,068
quite like Charlotte Bronte.

423
00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:27,940
As a Northern school girl,

424
00:20:27,940 --> 00:20:31,270
there was absolutely no
escaping the Brontes.

425
00:20:31,270 --> 00:20:34,730
We're forever here, in Haworth
Parsonage, on the coach,

426
00:20:34,730 --> 00:20:36,470
was always raining,

427
00:20:36,470 --> 00:20:40,050
but somehow this kind of
gloomy, pooky parsonage,

428
00:20:40,050 --> 00:20:43,750
and the idea of the three
sisters writing and dying

429
00:20:43,750 --> 00:20:46,743
seemed designed to appeal
to the teenage imagination.

430
00:20:47,970 --> 00:20:51,550
Bronte is as deeply
associated with Yorkshire

431
00:20:51,550 --> 00:20:54,010
and gloom and rain and Moors

432
00:20:54,010 --> 00:20:56,563
as Jane Austen is with
Hampshire and sunshine.

433
00:20:59,890 --> 00:21:03,080
And Charlotte was certainly
no Jane Austen fan.

434
00:21:03,080 --> 00:21:05,130
She complained in letters to her friends.

435
00:21:06,480 --> 00:21:07,313
- The passions

436
00:21:07,313 --> 00:21:08,703
are perfectly unknown to her.

437
00:21:11,110 --> 00:21:14,110
I should hardly like to live
with her ladies and gentlemen

438
00:21:14,110 --> 00:21:16,353
in their elegant, but confined houses.

439
00:21:19,114 --> 00:21:22,050
- Lucasta Miller
is a Bronte expert.

440
00:21:22,050 --> 00:21:23,640
And I wondered if she could explain

441
00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:25,263
Charlotte's attitude to Austen.

442
00:21:26,432 --> 00:21:28,300
- I think it just suggest that Austen

443
00:21:28,300 --> 00:21:31,630
just wasn't hugely popular
in the 1820s and '30s

444
00:21:31,630 --> 00:21:33,750
when Charlotte Bronte was sort of,

445
00:21:33,750 --> 00:21:36,580
as it were, doing her
apprenticeship as a writer.

446
00:21:36,580 --> 00:21:38,240
I mean, she was a hugely voracious reader,

447
00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:40,270
but what she was reading

448
00:21:40,270 --> 00:21:42,820
was stuff that was completely opposed

449
00:21:42,820 --> 00:21:45,520
to the Austen sensibility.

450
00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:49,030
- Is it just that
the Bronte's found Austen

451
00:21:49,030 --> 00:21:51,860
too sensible and suitable?

452
00:21:51,860 --> 00:21:53,190
- Yeah, there's much more than that.

453
00:21:53,190 --> 00:21:56,030
I think Bronte thought
that Austen was in denial

454
00:21:56,030 --> 00:21:59,160
about human psychology.

455
00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:00,870
I mean, Bronte, you know,

456
00:22:00,870 --> 00:22:02,780
the sex instinct and the death instinct

457
00:22:02,780 --> 00:22:06,510
are the things that you
get in the Bronte novels,

458
00:22:06,510 --> 00:22:07,430
that sort of, you know,

459
00:22:07,430 --> 00:22:09,722
pulling them right up to the surface

460
00:22:09,722 --> 00:22:14,722
and Bronte thought that
Austen was shallow, prim,

461
00:22:15,500 --> 00:22:18,380
superficial, sort of averting her eyes

462
00:22:18,380 --> 00:22:20,560
from the truth about human nature.

463
00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:23,410
- I would say that's a really
unfair caricature of Austen

464
00:22:23,410 --> 00:22:26,550
because there's just as
much pain and suffering,

465
00:22:26,550 --> 00:22:29,060
disinheritance, poverty,

466
00:22:29,060 --> 00:22:31,400
outsiders and depression, there,

467
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:33,290
as there is in any Bronte novel.

468
00:22:33,290 --> 00:22:35,480
But clearly there's something lacking

469
00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:37,410
as far as romantic readers are concerned.

470
00:22:37,410 --> 00:22:39,010
So what is it?

471
00:22:39,010 --> 00:22:44,010
- Yeah, I think it's the
individualism of Jane

472
00:22:44,010 --> 00:22:46,170
or indeed weathering heights.

473
00:22:46,170 --> 00:22:49,093
The idea of the romantic
outside or the romantic rebel.

474
00:22:50,490 --> 00:22:53,930
- Well, Austen's heroines
may not have been rebels,

475
00:22:53,930 --> 00:22:57,543
but they still enjoyed
heartbreak and desire.

476
00:22:59,190 --> 00:23:01,920
And where Bronte loves hysteria,

477
00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:04,113
Austen prefers smiling irony.

478
00:23:07,210 --> 00:23:08,820
- Dear, Mrs. Moreland,

479
00:23:08,820 --> 00:23:11,470
consider the dreadful
nature of the suspicions

480
00:23:11,470 --> 00:23:13,300
you have entertained.

481
00:23:13,300 --> 00:23:15,023
What have you been judging from?

482
00:23:16,202 --> 00:23:18,400
Remember the country and
the age in which we live?

483
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:20,120
Remember that we are English,

484
00:23:20,120 --> 00:23:21,393
that we are Christians.

485
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:23,770
- 30 years earlier,

486
00:23:23,770 --> 00:23:26,700
Austen mocked overheated Gothic fiction

487
00:23:26,700 --> 00:23:28,920
in her novel, "Northanger Abbey".

488
00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:30,430
You can feel her smirking

489
00:23:30,430 --> 00:23:32,550
when her hero chides the heroine

490
00:23:32,550 --> 00:23:36,140
for entertaining cliched,
fantasies about spooky houses,

491
00:23:36,140 --> 00:23:38,043
locked rooms and dirty deeds.

492
00:23:38,910 --> 00:23:40,450
- Consult your own understanding,

493
00:23:40,450 --> 00:23:42,370
your own sense of the probable,

494
00:23:42,370 --> 00:23:45,380
your own observation of
what is passing around you.

495
00:23:45,380 --> 00:23:47,000
Dearest Mrs. Moreland,

496
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:49,363
what ideas have you been entertaining?

497
00:23:51,710 --> 00:23:53,880
- In the decades after her death,

498
00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:57,490
Austen was a background figure
in the literary landscape.

499
00:23:57,490 --> 00:24:00,340
Outshone by the unbridled Brontes,

500
00:24:00,340 --> 00:24:03,160
the medieval romances
of the Sir Walter Scott,

501
00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:05,270
as well as the social panoramas

502
00:24:05,270 --> 00:24:07,903
of Fackory, Gaskell and Dickens.

503
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:12,520
But by the middle of the 19th century,

504
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:14,570
Austen was back in print,

505
00:24:14,570 --> 00:24:17,610
thanks to a new Victorian invention.

506
00:24:17,610 --> 00:24:19,200
The advent of rail travel

507
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:21,370
re-engineered the shape of the nation

508
00:24:21,370 --> 00:24:24,020
and the speed of life.

509
00:24:24,020 --> 00:24:29,020
Quite unexpectedly, it also
created a captive new audience

510
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:31,070
for books!

511
00:24:31,070 --> 00:24:35,273
In 1848, William Henry
Smith and Sons, WHSmiths,

512
00:24:36,250 --> 00:24:40,580
opened their very first railway
bookshop, here at Euston.

513
00:24:40,580 --> 00:24:42,130
So if you're off on your travels,

514
00:24:42,130 --> 00:24:43,830
you could nip into the bookshop

515
00:24:43,830 --> 00:24:47,313
and pick up a copy from
their railway library.

516
00:24:48,370 --> 00:24:51,270
These very cheap and
often garrish editions

517
00:24:51,270 --> 00:24:52,793
were known as yellow backs.

518
00:24:53,950 --> 00:24:56,610
The inclusion of Austen
among the early yellow backs

519
00:24:56,610 --> 00:24:58,380
on the shelves of Smiths

520
00:24:58,380 --> 00:25:00,650
was largely due to the fact her titles

521
00:25:00,650 --> 00:25:02,833
had recently fallen out of copyright.

522
00:25:04,870 --> 00:25:08,660
Nevertheless, it was these
low price, popular editions,

523
00:25:08,660 --> 00:25:11,300
which introduced Austen for the first time

524
00:25:11,300 --> 00:25:13,236
to a mass audience.

525
00:25:16,460 --> 00:25:18,740
- It is a truth
universally acknowledged

526
00:25:18,740 --> 00:25:21,540
that a single man in
possession of a good fortune

527
00:25:21,540 --> 00:25:22,779
must be in want of a woman.

528
00:25:22,779 --> 00:25:23,680
- However little know,

529
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:25,640
the feelings or views of such a man,

530
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:28,080
may be on his first
entering a neighborhood.

531
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:31,057
- This mystery,
so well fixed in the minds

532
00:25:31,057 --> 00:25:33,640
of the surrounding families.

533
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:34,640
- That he is considered

534
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:36,260
as the rightful property

535
00:25:36,260 --> 00:25:38,323
of someone or other of their daughters.

536
00:25:41,570 --> 00:25:42,940
- But the real turning point

537
00:25:42,940 --> 00:25:44,230
in Austen's relationship

538
00:25:44,230 --> 00:25:48,020
with her Victorian readers came in 1870,

539
00:25:48,020 --> 00:25:51,700
when Jame's nephew,
James Edward Austen Lee,

540
00:25:51,700 --> 00:25:53,270
took it upon himself to present

541
00:25:53,270 --> 00:25:55,603
an authorized account of her life.

542
00:25:57,250 --> 00:25:59,870
I went to meet Professor
Kathryn Sutherland

543
00:25:59,870 --> 00:26:01,710
at the modest Hampshire cottage,

544
00:26:01,710 --> 00:26:04,173
where Austen lived with
her mother and sister.

545
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:07,300
So, who is the Jane Austen, then,

546
00:26:07,300 --> 00:26:10,180
that emerges from this first biography?

547
00:26:10,180 --> 00:26:12,880
- Well, a surprisingly intimate picture

548
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:14,530
of Jane Austen emerges,

549
00:26:14,530 --> 00:26:16,590
how she parceled out her time,

550
00:26:16,590 --> 00:26:18,170
how she was the one in the family

551
00:26:18,170 --> 00:26:20,940
who prepared breakfast
at nine in the morning.

552
00:26:20,940 --> 00:26:23,840
She was also responsible
for keeping an eye

553
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:26,180
on the quantities of tea that they had

554
00:26:26,180 --> 00:26:28,050
and just topping it up.

555
00:26:28,050 --> 00:26:30,320
How she wrote in this room,

556
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:33,320
sitting at her desk over there and how,

557
00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:34,960
this is where, of course,

558
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:37,660
mythology, perhaps begins
to enter the story.

559
00:26:37,660 --> 00:26:42,500
How she was alerted to
any unwelcomed intruder

560
00:26:42,500 --> 00:26:44,320
on her writing activities

561
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:47,220
by the creaking of this door as it opened

562
00:26:47,220 --> 00:26:49,740
so she could hide away her manuscripts.

563
00:26:49,740 --> 00:26:54,040
- I have to say that is one
of the most annoying anecdotes

564
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:57,130
in the whole of the
history of literary women.

565
00:26:57,130 --> 00:26:59,790
This idea that, oh, the creaking door.

566
00:27:00,730 --> 00:27:03,290
And then, oh, I'll hide away

567
00:27:03,290 --> 00:27:05,200
'cause I'm a modest little woman.

568
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:07,610
She's described really in a way that fits,

569
00:27:07,610 --> 00:27:10,550
I think, Victorian ideals of femininity,

570
00:27:10,550 --> 00:27:13,760
like some sort of little
rein or spirits, you know,

571
00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:18,480
and not seeking the, you
know, the glare of publicity.

572
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:21,610
And I dunno, it don't fit really

573
00:27:21,610 --> 00:27:25,230
with all the sense of the
kind of intellectual breo

574
00:27:25,230 --> 00:27:26,323
that you find in the-

575
00:27:26,323 --> 00:27:30,060
- I think it doesn't fit
at all, but undoubtedly,

576
00:27:30,060 --> 00:27:32,400
it does give us a myth

577
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:37,103
and a myth that remained
powerful for an extremely long.

578
00:27:44,860 --> 00:27:46,250
- So presumably,
there's not very much

579
00:27:46,250 --> 00:27:49,010
about the secret private
life of the bedroom

580
00:27:49,010 --> 00:27:51,440
in the Austen Lee biography.

581
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:53,090
- No, I think we'd be hard pushed

582
00:27:53,090 --> 00:27:55,090
to find secret private
lives of the bedroom

583
00:27:55,090 --> 00:27:56,700
in any of Jane Austen's biographies.

584
00:27:56,700 --> 00:27:58,950
That's a challenge for
biographers, isn't it?

585
00:27:59,870 --> 00:28:02,850
But actually, as the way
this room is now presented

586
00:28:02,850 --> 00:28:06,130
as part of the museum
of the shrine to Jane,

587
00:28:06,130 --> 00:28:09,070
there are elements of the
Austen Lee myth in here.

588
00:28:09,070 --> 00:28:14,070
For instance, he had the
dilemma of a portrait.

589
00:28:15,330 --> 00:28:17,670
People want to see what
Jane Austen looked like.

590
00:28:17,670 --> 00:28:21,840
All he had to work with
was this cartoon drawing

591
00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:25,700
by Cassandra, sometime 1810, '11,

592
00:28:25,700 --> 00:28:27,550
rather sardonic image.

593
00:28:27,550 --> 00:28:29,420
- Yes, what a sort of mean little face.

594
00:28:29,420 --> 00:28:31,490
- A mean, little face, indeed,

595
00:28:31,490 --> 00:28:35,820
and sadly argued over what they should do.

596
00:28:35,820 --> 00:28:38,590
And they decided they
would give it a make-over.

597
00:28:38,590 --> 00:28:41,840
And so a portrait was
commissioned from that

598
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:43,970
to soften its features.

599
00:28:43,970 --> 00:28:46,490
And interestingly, there was
quite a debate in the family

600
00:28:46,490 --> 00:28:49,650
as to whether it looked like
Jane and they all agreed,

601
00:28:49,650 --> 00:28:51,360
it had a kind of look of her,

602
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:53,690
but they wouldn't really
recognize her from it.

603
00:28:53,690 --> 00:28:55,820
But on the other hand,
it was a pleasant face.

604
00:28:55,820 --> 00:28:58,460
- Pleasant, but much
less intelligent looking.

605
00:28:58,460 --> 00:29:01,200
- Less intelligent, a bit dopey.

606
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:05,207
- Yes, more confined
within a domestic image.

607
00:29:05,207 --> 00:29:06,040
- Yes.

608
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:07,810
- And this became the frontest piece

609
00:29:07,810 --> 00:29:09,310
of the first edition of the biography.

610
00:29:09,310 --> 00:29:11,640
- So this is dear-
- This is, shortened.

611
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:14,803
- Exactly, this is the
Jane Austen of myth.

612
00:29:20,510 --> 00:29:22,800
- As the end of the century approached,

613
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,700
an ardent army of Jane Austen fans

614
00:29:25,700 --> 00:29:27,387
were swelling in numbers.

615
00:29:29,700 --> 00:29:33,440
Then and now, the spiritual
home for these enthusiasts

616
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:37,948
was and remains the Georgian
resort city of Bath.

617
00:29:40,590 --> 00:29:44,500
Today, the highlight of Bath's
annual Jane Austen festival

618
00:29:44,500 --> 00:29:47,320
is a dashing regency parade,

619
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:49,780
a carnival of and millinery,

620
00:29:49,780 --> 00:29:51,940
bonnets and britches.

621
00:29:51,940 --> 00:29:53,610
And it's not just the ladies

622
00:29:53,610 --> 00:29:55,423
who have a weakness for buckskin.

623
00:29:56,270 --> 00:29:57,610
Are you the haberdasher?

624
00:29:57,610 --> 00:30:00,880
- Well, I, madame, I'm the
Haberdasher's assistant,

625
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:03,800
for my wife's businessman, madame.

626
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:05,760
- So you sell all this stuff?

627
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:08,980
How'd you account for everybody
wanting to dress up so much?

628
00:30:08,980 --> 00:30:12,143
- Well, I mean that is
a short, short question

629
00:30:12,143 --> 00:30:13,560
with a big answer.

630
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:16,897
If you accept the 60 years
of Georgia III's right,

631
00:30:16,897 --> 00:30:20,670
it was probably the greatest
epoch in British history

632
00:30:20,670 --> 00:30:23,920
and the regency is the cream
on the top of the cake.

633
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:26,303
And so it attracts so many people.

634
00:30:28,070 --> 00:30:29,620
- Did you make your own costumes

635
00:30:29,620 --> 00:30:30,790
or did you buy them?

636
00:30:30,790 --> 00:30:32,433
- This is my own.

637
00:30:32,433 --> 00:30:33,783
And this is a Naval surgeon, 1806.

638
00:30:33,783 --> 00:30:35,740
- Oh, is it?
- Oh yes, yeah.

639
00:30:35,740 --> 00:30:37,870
- Do you think, that's what
a lot of the appeal is,

640
00:30:37,870 --> 00:30:41,207
actually seeing clothes, the
costumes, the carriages, the-

641
00:30:41,207 --> 00:30:42,119
- Oh yeah, yeah.

642
00:30:42,119 --> 00:30:42,952
- The chandeliers.
- Yeah.

643
00:30:42,952 --> 00:30:45,023
It's like age of elegance,
that's gone, I think.

644
00:30:46,118 --> 00:30:47,410
And a lot of people look for it.

645
00:30:47,410 --> 00:30:49,840
A lot of people are wishing they were back

646
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:52,393
to that standard of elegance.

647
00:30:54,540 --> 00:30:56,130
- A hundred years ago,

648
00:30:56,130 --> 00:31:00,750
there was a rather more serious
male interest in her books,

649
00:31:00,750 --> 00:31:04,010
a sophisticated, and
highbrow clique of academics

650
00:31:04,010 --> 00:31:07,528
and elites who call
themselves the Janeites.

651
00:31:10,510 --> 00:31:13,430
For Janeites, like George Saintsbury,

652
00:31:13,430 --> 00:31:16,070
the proper appreciation
of Austen's literature

653
00:31:16,070 --> 00:31:19,729
was an exclusive and reverential pursuit.

654
00:31:19,729 --> 00:31:20,930
- With Ms. Austen,

655
00:31:20,930 --> 00:31:24,420
the myriad, trivial unforced strokes

656
00:31:24,420 --> 00:31:26,350
build up the picture like magic.

657
00:31:26,350 --> 00:31:27,560
Nothing is false.

658
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:29,383
Nothing is superfluous.

659
00:31:30,430 --> 00:31:32,920
- Katie Halsey is
the author of a new book

660
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:34,680
on Jane Austen's readers.

661
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:36,380
And I met up with her in Bath

662
00:31:36,380 --> 00:31:40,290
to find out who these
Janeites actually were.

663
00:31:40,290 --> 00:31:43,880
- They're a sort of cozy
elites of Oxford dawns,

664
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:48,530
the literati, who are all really
interested in Jane Austen.

665
00:31:48,530 --> 00:31:50,943
- They do seem quite
precious to me, the Janeites.

666
00:31:50,943 --> 00:31:52,430
They say things like,

667
00:31:52,430 --> 00:31:54,810
oh, I'd like to marry Elizabeth Bennett

668
00:31:54,810 --> 00:31:55,810
and spend my life with her.

669
00:31:55,810 --> 00:31:58,090
It was quite an odd thing
to say about a heroine.

670
00:31:58,090 --> 00:31:58,923
- Yeah, it is.

671
00:31:58,923 --> 00:32:01,350
But then that whole thing about wanting

672
00:32:01,350 --> 00:32:03,350
to be a part of Jane Austen's life

673
00:32:03,350 --> 00:32:06,140
is very much part of what the
Janeites are all about, too.

674
00:32:06,140 --> 00:32:07,000
So they're interested

675
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:08,460
in falling in love with her characters,

676
00:32:08,460 --> 00:32:10,450
knowing more about her characters,

677
00:32:10,450 --> 00:32:12,360
being part of a world, I suppose,

678
00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:13,980
that Jane Austen has created.

679
00:32:13,980 --> 00:32:16,440
- So what was it that the
Janeites found in the books?

680
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:19,910
Is it the characters,
the style, the laughter?

681
00:32:19,910 --> 00:32:20,820
Is it the wit?

682
00:32:20,820 --> 00:32:22,253
Is it the architecture?

683
00:32:22,253 --> 00:32:23,086
- I think it's probably

684
00:32:23,086 --> 00:32:24,650
all of those things and more.

685
00:32:24,650 --> 00:32:26,410
I mean, I think one of
the things they did find

686
00:32:26,410 --> 00:32:29,230
was an idea of an England that had gone,

687
00:32:29,230 --> 00:32:32,040
a secure world, a world that has rules,

688
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:34,310
however much those rules
may actually be subverted

689
00:32:34,310 --> 00:32:35,650
and undercut in the novels.

690
00:32:35,650 --> 00:32:38,003
So I think people saw
that stability in her.

691
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:40,660
- I think it's good to know

692
00:32:40,660 --> 00:32:42,570
that there are all these
sort of male supporters

693
00:32:42,570 --> 00:32:44,050
of Jane Austen throughout history,

694
00:32:44,050 --> 00:32:46,770
because somehow the fact
that she is now seen

695
00:32:46,770 --> 00:32:50,040
as such a kind of female
author with a female readership

696
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:51,780
has somehow undermined her status.

697
00:32:51,780 --> 00:32:53,100
- Yes and I think it's important

698
00:32:53,100 --> 00:32:55,410
for people to know that
Winston Churchill, for example,

699
00:32:55,410 --> 00:32:57,810
read Jane Austen in the middle of the war.

700
00:32:57,810 --> 00:32:59,360
And he said that she cured him.

701
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:01,440
Antibiotics and Jane Austen made me better

702
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:02,797
from a fever, he says.

703
00:33:07,500 --> 00:33:11,073
- Another loyal Janeite was
the writer, Rudyard Kipling.

704
00:33:12,110 --> 00:33:13,530
During the first World War,

705
00:33:13,530 --> 00:33:16,283
the Kipling's lost their
only son in battle.

706
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:19,260
Rudyard assuaged their grief,

707
00:33:19,260 --> 00:33:22,183
reading Austen aloud to
his wife and daughter.

708
00:33:24,130 --> 00:33:27,540
He even went on to write a
short story called the Janeites

709
00:33:27,540 --> 00:33:30,310
sat in the battlefields
of the Western front.

710
00:33:34,670 --> 00:33:37,180
This is the man in gate, in HIPA,

711
00:33:37,180 --> 00:33:40,510
the town, the Tommy's called wipers.

712
00:33:40,510 --> 00:33:42,460
Thousands upon thousands of soldiers

713
00:33:42,460 --> 00:33:44,260
from across the British empire

714
00:33:44,260 --> 00:33:46,993
marched out into the
trenches through this gate.

715
00:33:47,950 --> 00:33:50,350
In an act of commemoration,

716
00:33:50,350 --> 00:33:53,290
a ceremony of remembrance takes place here

717
00:33:53,290 --> 00:33:55,554
every single day of the year.

718
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:12,400
Trench warfare was a soul destroying mix

719
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:15,975
of intermittent terror
and numbing monotony.

720
00:34:20,140 --> 00:34:25,020
The December, 1915 edition of
the War Illustrated reported,

721
00:34:25,020 --> 00:34:28,690
we were caught unprepared
by the calama for books

722
00:34:28,690 --> 00:34:33,450
that rose from the trenches
almost as soon as they were dug.

723
00:34:33,450 --> 00:34:35,980
No matter what officer or man was asked,

724
00:34:35,980 --> 00:34:38,200
if there was anything he wanted,

725
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:40,780
the answer was always the same.

726
00:34:40,780 --> 00:34:43,273
Cigarettes and something to read.

727
00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:49,463
But what sort of books
did the soldiers demand?

728
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:53,933
What he does not want
is fiction about war.

729
00:34:55,550 --> 00:34:59,770
He likes tales of strong
domestic interest,

730
00:34:59,770 --> 00:35:03,420
and it is worth noting that Jane Austen

731
00:35:03,420 --> 00:35:05,560
has taken her fragrant way

732
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:07,913
into a surprising number of dugouts.

733
00:35:09,110 --> 00:35:12,720
Among papers donated to
the Imperial War Museum,

734
00:35:12,720 --> 00:35:15,800
there is a private memoir by an officer,

735
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:17,550
a teacher from Glasgow

736
00:35:17,550 --> 00:35:19,793
by the name of William Boyd Henderson.

737
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:23,560
- Often and often,

738
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:25,010
during a long notch,

739
00:35:25,010 --> 00:35:26,820
of a cold dotted job,

740
00:35:26,820 --> 00:35:28,890
a lottie or a caterpillar,

741
00:35:28,890 --> 00:35:30,260
I've been think kept in my spirits

742
00:35:30,260 --> 00:35:33,530
by the thought of the book
in my kitbag waiting for me,

743
00:35:33,530 --> 00:35:35,130
with what eagerness I have opened it

744
00:35:35,130 --> 00:35:37,270
and being transported immediately

745
00:35:37,270 --> 00:35:39,270
from the world of sergeant majors,

746
00:35:39,270 --> 00:35:42,790
being out fighting and trench
digging and lolly cleaning

747
00:35:42,790 --> 00:35:46,150
and caterpillar leasing to
a new world created for me

748
00:35:46,150 --> 00:35:48,283
by adored, Jane Austen.

749
00:35:50,390 --> 00:35:54,200
- I see myself lying
full length on the grass

750
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:57,767
as I finish a chapter of "Emma".

751
00:35:59,490 --> 00:36:02,350
Till now that she was
threatened with its loss,

752
00:36:02,350 --> 00:36:05,070
Emma had never known how
much of her happiness

753
00:36:05,070 --> 00:36:08,060
depended on being first
with Mr. Knightley,

754
00:36:08,060 --> 00:36:10,960
first in interest and affection.

755
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:13,920
Satisfied that it was so
and feeling it her due,

756
00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:16,450
she had enjoyed it without reflection.

757
00:36:16,450 --> 00:36:19,640
And only in the dread of being supplanted

758
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:23,793
found how inexpressibly
important it had been.

759
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:29,140
Face to face with industrialized
military slaughter,

760
00:36:29,140 --> 00:36:31,820
soldiers could look
away into Austen's world

761
00:36:31,820 --> 00:36:33,193
and be consoled.

762
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:38,670
In 1917, an intelligence
officer, Reginald Farrah,

763
00:36:38,670 --> 00:36:40,660
managed to find time to mark the centenary

764
00:36:40,660 --> 00:36:44,410
of Jane Austen's death
with a critical essay,

765
00:36:44,410 --> 00:36:46,533
which redefined her achievement.

766
00:36:47,500 --> 00:36:51,327
Farrah wrote, "Talk of
her limitations is vain.

767
00:36:51,327 --> 00:36:54,717
"It must never be thought
that limitation of scene

768
00:36:54,717 --> 00:36:57,573
"implies limitation of human emotion.

769
00:36:58,777 --> 00:37:02,047
"Jane Austen's heroes and
heroines and subject matter

770
00:37:02,047 --> 00:37:05,513
"are in fact, universal human nature.

771
00:37:06,730 --> 00:37:08,850
He kills off stone dead,

772
00:37:08,850 --> 00:37:12,680
the idea of two-ways spinsterish Jane

773
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:16,670
and says, really she
lives only in the novels

774
00:37:16,670 --> 00:37:20,430
where she is a genius on
a par with Shakespeare,

775
00:37:20,430 --> 00:37:25,140
important forever for the
brilliance of her realism.

776
00:37:25,140 --> 00:37:28,380
So it lasts a hundred
years after her death.

777
00:37:28,380 --> 00:37:32,995
She's finally made it
as a national author.

778
00:37:36,690 --> 00:37:40,560
After the unimaginable
barbarity of World War,

779
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:42,890
the civilizing power of culture

780
00:37:42,890 --> 00:37:46,060
seemed essential for
the future of mankind.

781
00:37:46,060 --> 00:37:49,780
And in the universities,
the study of the humanities,

782
00:37:49,780 --> 00:37:53,283
especially English
literature, expanded rapidly.

783
00:37:54,270 --> 00:37:58,400
This newly popular discipline
demanded a scientific rigor,

784
00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:01,423
be brought to the gentle
art of reading books.

785
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:06,810
In 1948, a controversial Cambridge-dom

786
00:38:06,810 --> 00:38:09,610
wrote a book that transformed
Jane Austen's ranking

787
00:38:09,610 --> 00:38:11,920
in the literary league tables.

788
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:15,030
F. R. Leavis was one
of the most opinionated

789
00:38:15,030 --> 00:38:18,200
and influential critics of modern times.

790
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:20,593
And he was based here at Downing College.

791
00:38:21,830 --> 00:38:25,830
Leavis formed the taste of
generations of graduates

792
00:38:25,830 --> 00:38:29,960
from the 1930s, right
through to the 1960s.

793
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:33,370
In his bible entitled,
"The Great Tradition",

794
00:38:33,370 --> 00:38:37,020
F. R. Leavis asserted
that there were only five,

795
00:38:37,020 --> 00:38:40,400
truly great novelists writing in English.

796
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:42,960
And they were D.H. Lawrence,

797
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:45,620
Henry James, Joseph Conrad,

798
00:38:45,620 --> 00:38:49,450
George Elliott, and then
the writer he declared,

799
00:38:49,450 --> 00:38:52,853
the mother of the great
tradition, Jane Austen.

800
00:38:54,100 --> 00:38:56,090
F.R. his wife, Queenie,

801
00:38:56,090 --> 00:38:58,080
both taught the young Janet Todd,

802
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:00,680
when she was a student in
Cambridge, in the sixties.

803
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:04,120
- Right after the war.

804
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:06,620
and the I think that
the Leavis' both thought

805
00:39:06,620 --> 00:39:10,310
that English literature was
going to save civilization

806
00:39:10,310 --> 00:39:13,020
and we were to learn
it and get it correct.

807
00:39:13,020 --> 00:39:15,020
And then we would go
out into the big world

808
00:39:15,020 --> 00:39:18,320
and in a sense, preach the
doctrine of English literature.

809
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:21,120
So I think there was a
real didactic aim in it.

810
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:22,410
At the same time,

811
00:39:22,410 --> 00:39:25,530
they despised didacticism in literature,

812
00:39:25,530 --> 00:39:27,456
which is why they liked Jane Austen.

813
00:39:28,810 --> 00:39:31,940
- Man Booker Prize
winner Howard Jacobson,

814
00:39:31,940 --> 00:39:33,650
who rogueishly calls himself

815
00:39:33,650 --> 00:39:35,530
the Jewish Jane Austen

816
00:39:35,530 --> 00:39:37,687
was also a student of the Leavis'.

817
00:39:38,764 --> 00:39:40,760
- He's was the words on the page, man.

818
00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:43,520
That was the phrase,
the words on the page.

819
00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:44,960
And that was why I went to him.

820
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:46,880
I was interested in the words on the page,

821
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:50,170
and that was why I'd got
to Jane Austen, myself,,

822
00:39:50,170 --> 00:39:51,860
because of the words on the page.

823
00:39:51,860 --> 00:39:53,560
Nothing extraneous.

824
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:56,540
Leavis said, Jane Austen,
is a serious of writer,

825
00:39:56,540 --> 00:39:59,860
as you get, and the fact that
she is as funny as she is,

826
00:39:59,860 --> 00:40:01,790
doesn't detract from the seriousness,

827
00:40:01,790 --> 00:40:03,760
indeed contributes to the seriousness,

828
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:07,310
but these are serious,
serious novels as you get,

829
00:40:07,310 --> 00:40:10,883
Leavis argues, about
society and about morality,

830
00:40:12,130 --> 00:40:15,740
about the relation between
manners and morality.

831
00:40:15,740 --> 00:40:19,570
And I had no difficulty
reading her that way, too,

832
00:40:19,570 --> 00:40:21,270
when I got to Cambridge.

833
00:40:21,270 --> 00:40:25,500
- So what are the qualities
that they really praise then,

834
00:40:25,500 --> 00:40:26,830
in Jane Austen?

835
00:40:26,830 --> 00:40:28,210
Because we have this,

836
00:40:28,210 --> 00:40:30,310
if she's been praised in the 19th century

837
00:40:30,310 --> 00:40:34,440
for her kind of homely virtue
and her domestic heroines,

838
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:37,090
and then she seems to be praised
in the early 20th century,

839
00:40:37,090 --> 00:40:39,560
you know, for her wit.
- Hmm.

840
00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:42,160
- Where is the moral force, then,

841
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:43,770
that Leavis would have loved in her?

842
00:40:43,770 --> 00:40:46,330
- Well, I think it's a moral complexity,

843
00:40:46,330 --> 00:40:47,220
that's what they like.

844
00:40:47,220 --> 00:40:50,150
And it's not "Pride and
Prejudice", primarily.

845
00:40:50,150 --> 00:40:52,050
It's "Mansfield Park".

846
00:40:52,050 --> 00:40:55,310
And Queenie says that "Mansfield Park"

847
00:40:55,310 --> 00:40:57,283
is the first modern novel.

848
00:41:00,610 --> 00:41:03,440
- Alas, it
was almost Crawford's doing.

849
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:05,480
She had seen her influence in every speech

850
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:06,403
and was miserable.

851
00:41:07,660 --> 00:41:09,760
The doubts and alarms
as to her own conduct,

852
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:11,380
which had previously distressed her in,

853
00:41:11,380 --> 00:41:13,490
which had all slept
while she listened to him

854
00:41:13,490 --> 00:41:15,440
will become of little consequence, now.

855
00:41:16,410 --> 00:41:19,710
This deeper anxiety swallowed them up.

856
00:41:19,710 --> 00:41:21,120
Things should take their course.

857
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:22,920
She cared not how it ended.

858
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:25,587
Her cousins might attack,
but could hardly tease her.

859
00:41:26,660 --> 00:41:27,740
She was beyond their reach,

860
00:41:27,740 --> 00:41:30,283
and if it lasts obliged
to yield, no matter.

861
00:41:31,140 --> 00:41:32,423
It was all misery, now.

862
00:41:33,887 --> 00:41:35,510
- "Mansfield Park", interestingly,

863
00:41:35,510 --> 00:41:38,840
was probably the novel that
we did most at Cambridge,

864
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:40,760
that we thought most about at Cambridge.

865
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:43,790
It was the one that had
that air of being, you know,

866
00:41:43,790 --> 00:41:46,050
a serious investigation

867
00:41:47,611 --> 00:41:49,855
of the mores of that society.

868
00:41:49,855 --> 00:41:51,306
- Frannie, we want your services.

869
00:41:51,306 --> 00:41:52,639
- Yes, I'm here.

870
00:41:53,673 --> 00:41:55,780
- Oh, don't leave your
seat, we don't want you now.

871
00:41:55,780 --> 00:41:57,100
But for the plane.

872
00:41:57,100 --> 00:41:58,479
You must be wife.

873
00:41:58,479 --> 00:41:59,312
- No.

874
00:42:00,797 --> 00:42:02,260
Indeed, you must excuse me.

875
00:42:02,260 --> 00:42:03,960
I could not act for anything.

876
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:06,198
If you wanted to give me the world,

877
00:42:06,198 --> 00:42:08,003
well indeed, I cannot.

878
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:12,599
- The tragedy just under
the surface of that world,

879
00:42:12,599 --> 00:42:14,730
of high morals,

880
00:42:14,730 --> 00:42:18,598
of how snobbery or a certain
kind of laxity here and there

881
00:42:18,598 --> 00:42:21,530
could lead to the most
terrible consequences.

882
00:42:21,530 --> 00:42:22,790
- I'm quite ashamed of you, Fannie,

883
00:42:22,790 --> 00:42:25,140
to make such a difficulty
of obliging your cousins

884
00:42:25,140 --> 00:42:26,860
in such a trifle,

885
00:42:26,860 --> 00:42:29,120
so kind as they are to you?

886
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:30,310
Pick the pop with the good grace

887
00:42:30,310 --> 00:42:31,820
and let us hear no more of it.

888
00:42:31,820 --> 00:42:33,330
- Do not urge her madame.

889
00:42:33,330 --> 00:42:34,800
It is not fair to urge her.

890
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:37,310
- I am not going to urge her.

891
00:42:37,310 --> 00:42:39,660
But I shall think her a very
obstinate, ungrateful girl,

892
00:42:39,660 --> 00:42:42,453
if she does not do what her
aunt and cousins wish her.

893
00:42:44,070 --> 00:42:46,733
Ungrateful indeed, considering
who and what she is.

894
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:54,500
- While Jane Austen was being
read with a new seriousness

895
00:42:54,500 --> 00:42:56,600
at the academic high table,

896
00:42:56,600 --> 00:42:59,920
she was also settling down
with a new mass audience

897
00:42:59,920 --> 00:43:03,129
in cinemas and sitting rooms
up and down the country.

898
00:43:09,830 --> 00:43:11,120
- So what are you showing me now?

899
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:13,216
- This is 1967.

900
00:43:14,049 --> 00:43:18,797
Yeah, this is a BBC costume
drama from the period.

901
00:43:18,797 --> 00:43:21,892
- A young man, who is he?

902
00:43:21,892 --> 00:43:25,040
- A young man of large fortune
from the north of England.

903
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:27,530
- It's Sunday tea time, here.

904
00:43:27,530 --> 00:43:28,930
And this is important, I think,

905
00:43:28,930 --> 00:43:33,070
because the classic
serial was for many years,

906
00:43:33,070 --> 00:43:34,970
sort of a children's slot, really,

907
00:43:34,970 --> 00:43:36,950
tea time drama on a Sunday night.

908
00:43:36,950 --> 00:43:39,040
- It's news to me him being extremely rich

909
00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:41,770
If he's flying from one place to another.

910
00:43:41,770 --> 00:43:43,800
I begin to wonder
whether he'll be so great

911
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:44,710
an asset to our neighborhood...

912
00:43:44,710 --> 00:43:47,520
- But this is going out at the same time

913
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,620
as the "The Forsyte Saga".
- Of course.

914
00:43:50,620 --> 00:43:54,130
- BBC Two, later in the
evening for grownups.

915
00:43:54,130 --> 00:43:56,887
So this is like the junior
version of "The Forsyte Saga".

916
00:43:56,887 --> 00:43:57,981
- Without the sex, though.

917
00:43:57,981 --> 00:43:59,363
- Without the sex, without the-

918
00:44:07,510 --> 00:44:10,450
But even then, Austen is not kind of

919
00:44:11,630 --> 00:44:14,670
really one of the major
writers for this kind of slot.

920
00:44:14,670 --> 00:44:16,810
Still, the tea time classic serial

921
00:44:16,810 --> 00:44:19,220
was very much the preserve
of Robert Louis Stevenson,

922
00:44:19,220 --> 00:44:20,960
and Dickins-
- Oh, "Kidnapped".

923
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:22,010
- Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

924
00:44:22,010 --> 00:44:24,240
So you would see "Kidnapped"
or "Oliver Twist"

925
00:44:24,240 --> 00:44:28,192
or "St. Ives" or "Dom Busby"
or something like that.

926
00:44:32,510 --> 00:44:36,080
- So here we are, 1980,
"Pride and Prejudice",

927
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:40,433
this is the first adaptation
that I remember vividly.

928
00:44:41,850 --> 00:44:43,710
Is it a classier production?

929
00:44:43,710 --> 00:44:46,520
- Much more so, it's much more expensive.

930
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:48,020
The lighting is much more complicated.

931
00:44:48,020 --> 00:44:50,630
There's much more location filming in it.

932
00:44:50,630 --> 00:44:53,710
The playing style is very different, too.

933
00:44:53,710 --> 00:44:56,070
It's much less of a feeling
of being trapped inside

934
00:44:56,070 --> 00:44:58,550
the quality street tin with this.

935
00:44:58,550 --> 00:44:59,520
There's a subtlety to it.

936
00:44:59,520 --> 00:45:01,710
There's an authenticity
to the costumes, too.

937
00:45:01,710 --> 00:45:03,440
We're clearly in the
right period, you know?

938
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:05,990
- Is this on BBC One, BBC Two, what time?

939
00:45:05,990 --> 00:45:09,080
- This is BBC Two and this is Sunday.

940
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:10,630
- So it's at nine o'clock.

941
00:45:10,630 --> 00:45:12,269
- Hmm, yeah, I mean, we're in,

942
00:45:12,269 --> 00:45:16,020
this is a slot that for a
decade or so at this point

943
00:45:16,020 --> 00:45:18,910
has been associated with high-end,

944
00:45:18,910 --> 00:45:21,750
thoughtful literary adaptation.

945
00:45:21,750 --> 00:45:23,750
- So it's the
version then,

946
00:45:23,750 --> 00:45:24,670
the heritage paint?

947
00:45:24,670 --> 00:45:26,811
- Yeah, very much so, very much so.

948
00:45:26,811 --> 00:45:28,764
Here he comes.
- Oh, marvelous.

949
00:45:30,128 --> 00:45:30,961
- Standing around in this stupid manner.

950
00:45:30,961 --> 00:45:31,980
- Dance with such company...

951
00:45:31,980 --> 00:45:34,530
- Look at those
cheekbones, my words.

952
00:45:34,530 --> 00:45:36,123
- So is the moment you
became an Austen scholar?

953
00:45:36,123 --> 00:45:39,062
- I think it might be.

954
00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:43,351
I do remember, we all had-

955
00:45:43,351 --> 00:45:45,103
- Are you having an epiphany, now?

956
00:45:45,103 --> 00:45:49,735
- We all had a bit of a
pash on David, look at that.

957
00:45:49,735 --> 00:45:50,568
- Dancing with that.

958
00:45:50,568 --> 00:45:54,170
- Oh, she's the most beautiful
creature I ever beheld.

959
00:45:54,170 --> 00:45:56,220
- Austen seems to have
achieved the status now

960
00:45:56,220 --> 00:46:00,700
of kind of heritage
entertainment for adults,

961
00:46:00,700 --> 00:46:03,250
utterly kind of tasteful and restrained.

962
00:46:03,250 --> 00:46:05,398
- Yes, the tone of these adaptations

963
00:46:05,398 --> 00:46:08,000
has changed very dramatically.

964
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:13,000
It's risen from the status of
historical fun of some kind

965
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:15,979
to an object of veneration.

966
00:46:19,310 --> 00:46:22,000
- And then it
seems to me that in 1995,

967
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:24,650
it all kind of goes ballistic, really.

968
00:46:24,650 --> 00:46:28,420
- That's the moment she goes
from being BBC Two to BBC One,

969
00:46:28,420 --> 00:46:30,103
from niche to mainstream.

970
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:34,420
She does seem to take on
a different kind of weight

971
00:46:34,420 --> 00:46:36,340
in the world, really.

972
00:46:36,340 --> 00:46:40,212
Maybe kind of the producers
finally know who she is.

973
00:46:42,260 --> 00:46:46,230
- The big difference
in the 1995 adaptation

974
00:46:46,230 --> 00:46:49,990
is famously how much sex Andrew Davis

975
00:46:49,990 --> 00:46:53,230
kind of pumped back into that production.

976
00:46:53,230 --> 00:46:54,870
- That is the moment when
that happens, isn't it?

977
00:46:54,870 --> 00:46:56,419
We all know the image that's coming next.

978
00:46:56,419 --> 00:46:58,201
- I know, and I can't bear it.

979
00:47:16,590 --> 00:47:19,750
In 1995, the actor Colin Firth

980
00:47:19,750 --> 00:47:22,620
emerged from the lake of Pemberley.

981
00:47:22,620 --> 00:47:24,690
In his sopping wet linen shirts

982
00:47:24,690 --> 00:47:28,117
and walked straight into female fantasy.

983
00:47:28,117 --> 00:47:31,540
"Pride and Prejudice"
with added testosterone,

984
00:47:31,540 --> 00:47:35,593
potent fuel that launched
a truly global brand.

985
00:47:40,610 --> 00:47:41,603
Mr. Darcy?

986
00:47:43,450 --> 00:47:44,283
- Mrs. Bennett.

987
00:47:44,283 --> 00:47:45,880
- I did not expect to see you, sir.

988
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:48,040
We understood all the family were from who

989
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:49,853
or we would never have presumed.

990
00:47:52,230 --> 00:47:53,063
- Excuse me.

991
00:47:57,680 --> 00:47:59,600
- Over the last two decades,

992
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:04,370
thanks to both cinema and
Andrew Davis' sexy TV version

993
00:48:04,370 --> 00:48:06,140
of regency gentility,

994
00:48:06,140 --> 00:48:09,300
Jane Austen has leapt from classic author

995
00:48:09,300 --> 00:48:11,604
into the realm of cult status.

996
00:48:13,980 --> 00:48:17,060
Back in Texas, that same Andrew Davis

997
00:48:17,060 --> 00:48:21,349
is the star turn at the Jane
Austen Society Convention.

998
00:48:22,830 --> 00:48:25,900
- I have a very quick question.

999
00:48:25,900 --> 00:48:30,900
Could you tell me why when
Elizabeth accepts Darcy,

1000
00:48:31,510 --> 00:48:36,110
that I don't see any
real emotion on his part

1001
00:48:36,110 --> 00:48:38,680
that he's really happy about it?

1002
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:40,540
- Very good question.

1003
00:48:40,540 --> 00:48:44,634
And thank you very much for
pointing up the only bad about-

1004
00:48:49,870 --> 00:48:53,580
- Outside the hall,
I asked Andrew why he'd wanted

1005
00:48:53,580 --> 00:48:56,560
to adapt "Pride and
Prejudice" in the first place.

1006
00:48:56,560 --> 00:48:59,510
- I thought that all the previous
adaptations were so dumb,

1007
00:48:59,510 --> 00:49:03,350
completely missed the fact
that it's about sex and money.

1008
00:49:03,350 --> 00:49:06,850
And that the engine of
the plot is Darcy's desire

1009
00:49:06,850 --> 00:49:07,683
for Elizabeth.

1010
00:49:08,770 --> 00:49:13,670
And I wanted to emphasize the
physicality and the thing,

1011
00:49:13,670 --> 00:49:16,000
it's about young people with hormones.

1012
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:19,710
So, lots and lots of galloping horses,

1013
00:49:19,710 --> 00:49:21,250
lots and lots of opportunity

1014
00:49:21,250 --> 00:49:23,430
for the audience to see the actors

1015
00:49:23,430 --> 00:49:25,900
with as many of their
clothes off and seen-

1016
00:49:25,900 --> 00:49:26,870
- I did notice that.

1017
00:49:26,870 --> 00:49:28,963
- Compatible with this-

1018
00:49:28,963 --> 00:49:30,870
- So you really developed, I think,

1019
00:49:30,870 --> 00:49:32,510
the character of Darcy, didn't you?

1020
00:49:32,510 --> 00:49:36,330
I mean, I, for me, it seems as
if you kind of made him more,

1021
00:49:36,330 --> 00:49:37,950
almost more like Mr. Rochester.

1022
00:49:37,950 --> 00:49:39,253
There's a bit of Bronte in your roster.

1023
00:49:39,253 --> 00:49:43,717
- I don't think I was changing
his character in the least,

1024
00:49:43,717 --> 00:49:45,340
from what Jane Austen did.

1025
00:49:45,340 --> 00:49:49,120
What I was doing was trying
to give the audience a chance

1026
00:49:49,120 --> 00:49:53,240
to see the story from his
point of view, as well as hers.

1027
00:49:56,180 --> 00:49:57,650
- But you did
something similar, I think,

1028
00:49:57,650 --> 00:49:59,120
in "Sense and Sensibility".

1029
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:01,990
- Absolutely, I think Jane Austen,

1030
00:50:01,990 --> 00:50:05,369
missed a trick or two in "Sense
and Sensibility" because-

1031
00:50:05,369 --> 00:50:06,636
- You better not say that here.

1032
00:50:06,636 --> 00:50:08,350
- I am going to say it here

1033
00:50:09,430 --> 00:50:11,300
because the guys that get the girls

1034
00:50:11,300 --> 00:50:14,280
in "Sense and Sensibility"
on the face of it

1035
00:50:14,280 --> 00:50:16,193
are not worthy of them.

1036
00:50:17,218 --> 00:50:20,143
And so I thought, they
really needed butching up.

1037
00:50:21,460 --> 00:50:23,467
And so that's what I did.

1038
00:50:23,467 --> 00:50:25,471
- You added testosterone to it.

1039
00:50:25,471 --> 00:50:26,304
- Yes.

1040
00:50:26,304 --> 00:50:28,920
- What impact do you
think the adaptations have

1041
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:32,370
on the readership of the books themselves?

1042
00:50:32,370 --> 00:50:35,870
- Well, I think there's been
a change in a lot of ways

1043
00:50:35,870 --> 00:50:40,120
because a lot of kids, a lot of students

1044
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:43,760
come to the books through the adaptations

1045
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:48,050
and while it's a good way to
get school kids in particular,

1046
00:50:48,940 --> 00:50:49,900
to read the books.

1047
00:50:49,900 --> 00:50:52,430
- So what's happening
to the Austen brand now?

1048
00:50:52,430 --> 00:50:55,563
Do you think her popularity
has peaked for a while?

1049
00:50:56,810 --> 00:51:00,199
- I think it might have peaked over here,

1050
00:51:00,199 --> 00:51:02,020
in the West at any rate.

1051
00:51:02,020 --> 00:51:04,030
I'm not sure whether
the we've heard enough

1052
00:51:04,030 --> 00:51:08,200
from the Chinese, from
the far East, in fact.

1053
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:09,033
I don't know when,

1054
00:51:09,033 --> 00:51:13,220
because there's a huge enthusiasm
for Jane Austen in Japan

1055
00:51:13,220 --> 00:51:16,210
and increasingly in China, as well.

1056
00:51:16,210 --> 00:51:18,120
- So, we've had Southern California,

1057
00:51:18,120 --> 00:51:20,460
Bollywood and next stop, China.

1058
00:51:20,460 --> 00:51:21,963
- Well, that's my bet.

1059
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:26,470
- So what is it in Austen's prose

1060
00:51:26,470 --> 00:51:30,700
that has allowed her to
be both so freely adapted

1061
00:51:30,700 --> 00:51:32,313
and so widely read?

1062
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:36,370
I think there is a clue to her magic

1063
00:51:36,370 --> 00:51:38,923
in the Hampshire village,
where she was born.

1064
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:42,610
One of the most surprising
things about Jane Austen

1065
00:51:42,610 --> 00:51:45,730
is just how very little we know about her.

1066
00:51:45,730 --> 00:51:48,340
This is the site of the Vic Ridge,

1067
00:51:48,340 --> 00:51:52,150
where she was born and spent
a large part of her life.

1068
00:51:52,150 --> 00:51:55,040
It's all nettles and cow paths today.

1069
00:51:55,040 --> 00:51:58,660
So you have to use your
imagination to fill in the blanks,

1070
00:51:58,660 --> 00:52:01,720
which is just what Jane
Austen trusted her readers

1071
00:52:01,720 --> 00:52:02,823
to be able to do.

1072
00:52:06,850 --> 00:52:08,860
Open any of Austen's novels

1073
00:52:08,860 --> 00:52:12,740
and you won't get bogged
down in descriptive details.

1074
00:52:12,740 --> 00:52:15,780
For example, all we are ever really told

1075
00:52:15,780 --> 00:52:18,180
about Willoughby or Darcy's looks

1076
00:52:18,180 --> 00:52:20,563
is that they are uncommonly handsome.

1077
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:24,380
Austen leaves room for
the reader's intelligence

1078
00:52:24,380 --> 00:52:28,340
and fantasies, which
has the uncanny effect

1079
00:52:28,340 --> 00:52:30,960
of allowing each new generation

1080
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:35,067
to see themselves reflected
back from her pages.

1081
00:52:44,050 --> 00:52:47,530
I think it's her spare
restrained style of writing

1082
00:52:47,530 --> 00:52:52,340
that has also allowed Austen
to be so widely reinvented

1083
00:52:52,340 --> 00:52:54,848
and ultimately, popularized.

1084
00:52:57,970 --> 00:53:00,580
I bet Austen satirical pen would have got

1085
00:53:00,580 --> 00:53:04,610
to work on this eccentric
convention thrown in her honor,

1086
00:53:04,610 --> 00:53:06,570
but for the 600 delegates,

1087
00:53:06,570 --> 00:53:10,630
having fun living the Jane
Austen life for a weekend,

1088
00:53:10,630 --> 00:53:14,030
this is all an attempt
to unlock the fiction

1089
00:53:14,030 --> 00:53:15,793
they love so much.

1090
00:53:17,690 --> 00:53:20,080
Sheryl Kinney is a doctor from Dallas

1091
00:53:20,080 --> 00:53:22,520
and chair of this year's event.

1092
00:53:22,520 --> 00:53:23,920
What I've been struck by

1093
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:27,040
is just incredible intellectual
firepower got here.

1094
00:53:27,040 --> 00:53:28,310
I mean, you're a gynecologist.

1095
00:53:28,310 --> 00:53:32,050
There's judges, teachers, journalists,

1096
00:53:32,050 --> 00:53:35,430
but ordinary readers and
fans all mixing together.

1097
00:53:35,430 --> 00:53:37,800
- And that's the wonderful
thing about Jane Austen

1098
00:53:37,800 --> 00:53:40,900
that you can enjoy her on so many levels.

1099
00:53:40,900 --> 00:53:42,330
You can just enjoy the films.

1100
00:53:42,330 --> 00:53:46,100
You can know the books verbatim
and we embrace everyone.

1101
00:53:46,100 --> 00:53:47,700
And that's what's so much fun.

1102
00:53:47,700 --> 00:53:49,490
- You're working hard to dispel

1103
00:53:49,490 --> 00:53:53,380
any kind of old fashioned
chintzy view of Jane Austen?

1104
00:53:53,380 --> 00:53:54,350
- Well, absolutely.

1105
00:53:54,350 --> 00:53:56,520
And this year we worked very hard on that.

1106
00:53:56,520 --> 00:54:01,040
One of our sponsors provided
us with black lace panties.

1107
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:02,750
- Oh my word.
- Yes.

1108
00:54:02,750 --> 00:54:06,190
And in each bag was a
note from John Willoughby

1109
00:54:06,190 --> 00:54:07,910
that said to call him.

1110
00:54:07,910 --> 00:54:10,140
- Call me XO, XO, Willoughby.

1111
00:54:10,140 --> 00:54:11,400
- Yes.
- What does he say?

1112
00:54:11,400 --> 00:54:12,940
- Well, when you call him on the phone,

1113
00:54:12,940 --> 00:54:14,950
it says, hi, I'm John.

1114
00:54:14,950 --> 00:54:16,010
This is John Willoughby.

1115
00:54:16,010 --> 00:54:18,050
And I'm not available this weekend.

1116
00:54:18,050 --> 00:54:22,500
Come to New York in 2012
for sex, power and money,

1117
00:54:22,500 --> 00:54:24,100
which is the next conference.

1118
00:54:24,100 --> 00:54:25,730
- But also, you have all this other stuff.

1119
00:54:25,730 --> 00:54:27,420
Team Willoughby.

1120
00:54:27,420 --> 00:54:30,510
I'm amazed that a gynecologist
would support Willoughby.

1121
00:54:30,510 --> 00:54:31,660
- Yes, well, as I said,

1122
00:54:31,660 --> 00:54:32,890
unless I'm trying to make money

1123
00:54:32,890 --> 00:54:35,329
from sexually transmitted diseases, so.

1124
00:54:37,550 --> 00:54:39,241
Oh, that just slipped out.

1125
00:54:44,960 --> 00:54:48,950
- This gathering of readers
displays a defining aspect

1126
00:54:48,950 --> 00:54:51,546
of Austen's long lasting power.

1127
00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:56,790
Plenty of men love Austen.

1128
00:54:56,790 --> 00:54:58,130
But from the outset,

1129
00:54:58,130 --> 00:55:01,940
these books by a woman, about women,

1130
00:55:01,940 --> 00:55:05,200
always created a sense of female community

1131
00:55:05,200 --> 00:55:07,260
from the ladies of all Thorpe onwards

1132
00:55:08,600 --> 00:55:11,200
and amongst this extremely diverse group,

1133
00:55:11,200 --> 00:55:13,490
I think the main attraction is still

1134
00:55:13,490 --> 00:55:15,913
that strong sense of sisterhood.

1135
00:55:17,590 --> 00:55:21,480
I'm really moved by the
warmth of the community

1136
00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:25,190
of fans, scholars, and readers

1137
00:55:25,190 --> 00:55:28,163
all united by their love for Jane Austen.

1138
00:55:29,358 --> 00:55:30,630
But perhaps, that's actually,

1139
00:55:30,630 --> 00:55:33,630
what's unique about Austen as a writer.

1140
00:55:33,630 --> 00:55:35,700
She seems to have pulled off

1141
00:55:35,700 --> 00:55:40,320
what seems an impossible
combination of academic prestige

1142
00:55:40,320 --> 00:55:41,773
and popular devotion.

1143
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:44,113
- To Jane.

1144
00:55:46,269 --> 00:55:47,930
- Very good.

1145
00:55:47,930 --> 00:55:48,965
Oh.