Pride-and-Prejudice

trenches in France during World War I. The world of card games and dances
described by Austen represents to these soldiers—who are scarcely aware of
the tone or even the plot of the novels—the imperiled English civilization for
which they are fighting.
Real-life Janeites have populated the world of letters since the publication
of Austen’s novels. The brilliant novelist Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is
preeminent among later writers who explored nuances of personality as their
characters played out their roles in society. At the end of the twentieth
century, several novels imitating Austen’s were published, though reviewers
and critics generally dismiss these books, which are written to satisfy the
appetite among Austen’s more ardent worshipers for anything relating to her
and her work. Among these fictions are sequels to Pride and Prejudice by
Emma Tennant (Pemberley) and Julia Barrett (Presumption: An
Entertainment), both published in 1993.
Bridget Jones’s Diary, a 1996 novel by Helen Fielding, describes a year in
the life of a modern-day Elizabeth Bennet. Like Austen’s heroine, Bridget
Jones falls first for a charming scoundrel but ends up with a man she had
initially misjudged, who, like Austen’s hero, is spectacularly wealthy, owns a
splendid manor house, and is named Darcy. At one point, Bridget watches the
BBC/A&E version of Pride and Prejudice and compares her Mr. Darcy to
Austen’s. She later tells her boss, a television producer, that they should
interview the stars, Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, about their off-screen
romance. (The film version of Bridget Jones’s Diary, directed by Sharon
Maguire, also features Colin Firth, this time in the role of Bridget’s Darcy.) In
Fielding’s novelistic sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2000),
Bridget does the interview with Firth in Italy and cannot suppress the urge to
ask him about his sexy role in the TV miniseries.