Resurgence in Jane Austen Interest Tied to Yearning for Romance

Ironically, Jane Austen did not enjoy a great deal fame and fortune when she was alive, in fact she wrote under a pseudonym. Nor did she have a life of romance, despite the subject matter of her novels and the make-over treatment she is currently receiving in books and movies.

So why the renewed interest now? In 1995, the BBC mini-series of Pride and Prejudice re-introduced an entire new audience to the beauty of Austen's works. The Hollywood movies Sense and Sensibility in 1995 and Emma in 1996 quickly followed. That beautiful actors like Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, and Gwyneth Paltrow spiced up the characters doesn't hurt either.

The latest film, Becoming Jane, starring up-and-coming It Girl Anne Hathaway, arrives in theaters on August 10. Becoming Jane depicts an imaginary romance between Jane Austen and a male acquaintance, and how it influenced Austen's work.

Jane Austen was the first important female English writer, and her reputation for excellent character depictions and strong females transcend the love story plots of each of her novels. For anyone seeking a convincing story about the female condition, manners, and the everyday life of the Romantic period, Austen is the premiere author. In addition to her most well known novels, Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Sense and Sensibility (1811), Austen wrote four other books: Northanger Abbey (1798), Mansfield Park(1814), Emma (1816), and Persuasion (1818, posthumously published).

Beyond the popularity of the films, and the perennial presence of Pride and Prejudice on high school English reading lists, Austen's themes of love and relationships make her books eternal reading material. In recent years a range of Austen-inspired books have flooded bookstores, well beyond the scope of Bridget Jones's Diary.

Many an excellent and modern day homage to Jane Austen's novels exists. One of the best is The Jane Austen Book Club (2004) by Karen Joy Fowler. The book details the six-person book club that meets to talk about Jane Austen and live out their ordinary, mixed up about love, lives. The group's conversation is familiar to anyone ever participating in a book club, yet the Austen theme of both the reading material and the everyday details is remarkably spot on, and the romance between two book club members is touching without being trite. The Jane Austen Book Club movie will be released in September.

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (2007) by Laura Viera Rigler, Me and Mr. Darcy (2007) by Alexandra Potter, and Austenland: A Novel (2007) by Shannon Hale are among the latest publications. These titles are blatant nods to Austen, but much of contemporary women's literature (a.k.a. chick lit) have elements of her style, and her perennial popularity rests in her excellent prose, strong heroines, and romantic happy endings.

The pop culture tie to Colin Firth doesn't hurt either.