'As if!'

Jane Austen once described the scope of her work as 'the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory, on which I work with so fine a brush', an ambiguous writerly modesty that has contributed to her critical and popular characterisation as an elegant, apolitical author, unconcerned with the world beyond her finely-drawn drawing room satires. But Austen is a writer of prickly discomfort, her humour governed by the material rigours of regency society. Adaptations that fail to understand that Austen is 'way harsh' (in the words of Cher from Clueless, a latter-day Emma) will flop; those that grasp her brittle subtlety will flourish. We're taking you from Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995) to Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice (2005) to Autumn de Wilde's Emma (2020); from Amy Heckerling's Clueless (1995) to Whit Stillman's Love and Friendship (2016). How do these films deal with the complex currencies of Austen's world? And how might Austen herself be used as a currency?