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neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds
of surrounding families, that he is considered the
rightful property of some one or other of their
daughters”.
My interest in her work expanded when I became a
Blue Badge Tourist Guide and had the good fortune to
begin to work with groups with a special interest when
I attended a specific Jane Austen course for Blue Badge
guides in 2002. In 2011 City and Village organised a
tour in London for the volunteers of the Jane Austen
House Museum and we enjoyed special access to the
British Library and I had fun showing them around the
National Portrait Gallery Regency gallery looking at
the people who shaped the nation in her lifetime as
well as the famous unfinished sketch by her sister
Cassandra.
I have enjoyed reading all of Jane Austen’s novels but I
also get enormous pleasure from the film and television
adaptations. The BBC ‘95 version of Pride & Prejudice
is a universal favourite with Colin Firth’s swim in the
lake added for particular enjoyment but I also
recommend the BBC adaptation of Persuasion from the
same year. Captain Wentworth played by Ciaran Hinds
perhaps has even more to attract the female audience
than Mr Darcy
.
Mr Darcy is described:
“
Mr Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine,
tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report
which was in general circulation within five minutes after
his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year.”
Jane Austen & Me: A Guide’s Eye View
“To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards
falling in love”
My introduction to Jane Austen would have been
when I was about 10 years old. My family were
sitting around at home on a wet Sunday afternoon
watching the family film on BBC One. I was
transfixed by a dark, brooding Laurence Olivier
portraying Mr Darcy opposite Greer Garson as
Elizabeth Bennett in the 1940 black and white
version of Pride and Prejudice. I’m sure it would
have been on the BBC because ITV was frowned
upon in our household! Ann Rutherford who played
Lydia Bennett let slip that the Art Director, Cedric
Gibbons, spent two years in England tracking down
authentic Georgian props with no expense spared
only to discover that back in Hollywood they had
decided to set the story in the Victorian era with
large, hooped dresses that were too cumbersome for
his props!
I first read Pride and Prejudice as a teenager but the
book certainly improves with the 2
nd
and 3
rd
reading
at different times of life. The great observation of
character and behaviour transcends time and could
easily be based today as the Regency period.
The book famously begins:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single
man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want
of a wife. However little known the feelings or views
of such a man may be on his first entering a