“Classic Remixes: On Learning to Appreciate Jane Austen”
I have a confession to make: My first encounter with the work of Jane Austen was not with any of her books, but with the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Maybe it’s because I am now a writer, but this fact often elicits shock and occasionally horror when people learn that I first fell in love not with Jane Austen’s words on the page, but with (gasp) a TV series.
However, I am not at all embarrassed to admit this! I can still remember spending a rainy day at a friend’s house sometime in the sixth or seventh grade, and her mom pulling out a box set and introducing me and my friend to Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, as played by Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. We watched two episodes (on VHS tape because yes, I am that old) before I had to go home. I begged my mom to take me to the library so I could check out the rest and see how it ended.
From there, I watched Emma (the 1996 Gwyneth Paltrow version), and of course the incredible Sense and Sensibility, starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet, as well as the 1999 Mansfield Park. I don’t think that I put two and two together that all of these period movies and shows that I brought to every sleepover were, you know, written by the same person until a couple of years later, when I first attempted to read Pride and Prejudice. (It did not go well–there was much skipping around.) From there, I muddled my way through Emma, and then got about twenty-five pages into Sense and Sensibility before giving up. The prose was dense, there wasn’t nearly as much dialogue as I’d have liked, and Austen spent an awful lot of time summarizing scenes that I’d rather watch unfold on the screen.
I wouldn’t pick up any of Austen’s work for another four years.
In the meantime, I continued to seek out adaptations. I saw Keira Knightly as Elizabeth Bennet in theaters. I fell in love with Bride and Prejudice, a Bollywood retelling with exciting singing and dance numbers. I read YA Austen retellings and Austen adjacent books, such as Austenland by Shannon Hale. Sometimes, I struggled with feeling like I wasn’t a “true” fan because I enjoyed adaptations more than the source material.
I was in college before I attempted to read another Austen novel, and this time it clicked. With an ingrained knowledge and appreciation for Austen’s stories and characters, as well as the reading stamina that I honed over years of reading novels that didn’t intimidate me, I actually loved the Austen novels I picked up. I had a better understanding of the Regency period and the social commentary, and that allowed me to laugh at the humor and get swept up in the romance. And with every reading since, I only fall more in love with Austen’s writing and her distinct outlook on social class and society. I appreciate her much more now, as an adult, than I did as a young teen. But without the adaptations and retellings that I consumed by the bucketful from ages 11-18, I’m not sure I ever would have been the Austen fan I am today.
For this reason, I don’t get upset or offended when readers sheepishly tell me that they’ve never read any of Austen’s work, and it’s why when I set out to write my first novel, Pride and Premeditation, it was very important to me to write a satisfying retelling that could also stand on its own, especially for younger readers who might not have had the chance or have the inclination to pick up a more challenging classic. My version is, admittedly, a bit unconventional as I mash up Austen’s classic characters with a murder mystery plot, but it is exactly the sort of thing I would have inhaled at age 13, and I had a lot of fun writing it, even as I worried about whether or not it would find an audience beyond Austenites.
Luckily for me, I needn’t have worried and I am delighted every time I get a note from a reader telling me that they enjoyed my books. More often than not, this is also followed by an admission that they’ve never read the original classic. And that is okay with me. Not every teen is going to gravitate toward the classics just because they’re classics. (Heck, not every adult reader wants to read the classics!) Retellings pique readers’ interest with fun and approachable twists on the classic stories, and especially for younger readers, they give them the confidence and framework to perhaps pick up the original classic someday. I’d even go so far as to say that genre mashups of classics and fresh retellings are what keep those classics relevant and talked about–not necessarily assigning them in high school English class.
I’ve seen the retellings to classics pipeline play out in real life, too. When I was a teen librarian, a few years before my first book was released, I ran a teen book club. We picked the book A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro, a fantastic gender-bent retelling of Sherlock Holmes. Most of my teens had never even read Sherlock Holmes before, and at least one didn’t know the legendary character at all. But they all enjoyed that book, and at the end of the session, a few of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s books were checked out of the collection. That wasn’t my end goal, but it was satisfying nonetheless.
And similarly, now that I have my own classic retelling series out in the world, I hope that teen readers pick it up because they’re intrigued by the premise and curious about the plot and characters. I hope the idea of a genre mashup gives them a thrill, and that it sparks an interest that wasn’t there previously. Because no matter how you come to these characters, whether it’s through a YouTube webseries or a musical or a YA novel, we can all agree on one thing: Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy are a pretty iconic couple.
Published November 12th, 2024 by HarperCollins
About the Book: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that London’s first female solicitor in possession of the details of a deadly crime, must be in want of a suspect.
The tenacious Lizzie Bennet has earned her place at Longbourn, her father’s law firm. Her work keeps her busy, but luckily she often has help from (and steals occasional kisses with) Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, a stern but secretly soft-hearted solicitor at Pemberley.
Lizzie is hired to investigate a deadly warehouse fire, and to find the mysterious woman who was spotted at the scene moments before the flames took hold. But when the case leads her to the sitting room of a woman Darcy once proposed marriage to, the delicate balance between personal and professional in their relationship is threatened.
Questions of the future are cast aside when the prime suspect is murdered and Lizzie’s own life is threatened. As the body count rises, and their suspicions about what was really going on in the warehouse grow, the pressure is on for Lizzie and Darcy to uncover the truth.
Lizzie and Darcy are back for more suspense, danger, and romance in this first in a duology spinoff of the Jane Austen Murder Mysteries!
About the Author: Tirzah Price grew up on a farm in Michigan, where she read every book she could get her hands on and never outgrew her love for YA fiction. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is a former bookseller and librarian. Now, she’s a senior contributing editor at Book Riot, and co-host of the Hey YA podcast. When she’s not writing, reading, or thinking about YA books, she splits her time between experimenting in the kitchen and knitting enough socks to last through winter. She lives in Iowa.
Thank you, Tirzah, for sharing the resurgence of the love of Austen with us!
