1) Last week, a Jane Austen manuscript sold for £993,250 at Sotheby’s. The manuscript contains the writing of an unfinished Austen novel, The Watsons, complete with numerous revisions and amendments. It has been bought by the Bodleian library in Oxford. Speaking to the BBC, Dr Chris Fletcher claimed: ‘It’s worth every single penny. This was the last…fiction manuscript in private ownership. We felt…very strongly that we needed to step in, bring it into public ownership for the enjoyment of scholars, but also the nation.’ Austen memorabilia commands famously high prices. In 2008, a lock of the author’s hair was flogged off for £4,800.
2) Austen’s work has spawned innumerable adaptations over the years. The novels have found silver-screen treatment most notably in Emma Thompson’s Sense and Sensibility (1995) and Pride and Prejudice (2005) with Keira Knightley, as well as the infamous TV series of the same novel (with a suitably be-drenched Colin Firth). Recent take-offs have focused more on the writer: Becoming Jane (2007) starred Anne Hathaway as the love-struck authoress while the BBC drama Miss Austen Regrets (2008) documented her final years. Recently, the Beeb has returned to more conventional fare with their productions of Emma (2009) and Sense and Sensibility (2008) with ITV branching out to the less well-known Persuasion (2007) as part of their Jane Austen season.
3) Mannered gentility has collided with sci-fi monsters in recent rewritings of the Austen canon. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith describes itself as ‘an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem.’ The pitch-perfect opening sentence is duly transformed (fans might want to look away now): ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.’ In 2009, the BBC claimed that Natalie Portman might star in the film adaptation. Other zombie-Austen titles include a prequel also by Seth Grahame-Smith called Dawn of the Dreadfuls, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Ben H. Winters and a Darcy-meets-Twilight book called Mr Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange.
4) Austen remains one of the UK’s most-read authors. Pride and Prejudice was voted the nation’s second-favourite book in 2003’s Big Read before taking the top-spot in a 2007 survey for World Book Day. She also made the BBC’s ‘100 great British heroes’ list in 2002 alongside other writers including Charles Dickens, J.K. Rowling, T.E. Lawrence and William Shakespeare. However, recent research has questioned whetherAusten did it all herself. Academic Kathyrn Sutherland alleges that Austen’s famously finessed style might owe some of its gloss to the efforts of editor William Gifford, as the author’s patchy spelling and grasp of grammar have been exposed through closer examination of her manuscripts. Examples of Austen’s work in original form, bad spelling and all, are newly available here.
5) Austen attracts fans from all walks of life. The most bizarre display of devotion came in 2009 when a crowd of over four hundred broke the world record for the largest number of people kitted out in Regency garb. The total count reached 409 during the Jane Austen festival in Bath. The festival is staged by the Jane Austen centre, responsible for an array of Austen delights: replica handmade period clothing at their gift shop, Regency tea rooms, an exhibition and walking tours. You can watch a video of the world-record event here.
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