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Move over Marvel, 2025 is all about Austen Inc: the insatiable, high-grossing mega-industry born out of the novels of Jane Austen
On the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, the ‘mania’ surrounding her genius shows no signs of abating. From Austen-themed tea towels to a ‘Pemberley Trail’ at Lyme Park, Austen props our economy up so literally she even appears on our £10 notes
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Elizabeth Bennett (Jennifer Ehle) and Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) in the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice: the partnership that resulted in ‘Darceymania’
Moviestore Collection / ShutterstockWhat do you think of when you hear ‘Jane Austen’? A young woman writing novels in her family’s Hampshire rectory — or a whole world, complete with ballrooms, proposals and Colin Firth emerging from a lake? These days, Jane Austen is a huge cultural industry in her own right. From her sister Cassandra fighting off rivals for possession of Jane’s letters, newly dramatised in Miss Austen, to the plethora of Pride and Prejudice adaptations in recent years, Jane has always been hot property. This year, the 250th anniversary of her birth, she’s hotter than ever. Here, Tatler takes you into the headquarters of Austen Inc.
Austen’s novels have always been wildly popular for their wit and romance. But in the 1990s, as a new exhibition at her Chawton home commemorates, ‘Austenmania’ hit the big time and the big screen. In 1995 and 1996 alone, there were two BBC shows (Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, of course, and Persuasion), two Hollywood films (Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Emma) and a rival ITV version of Emma starring Kate Beckinsale — not to mention spin-offs like Clueless. Yes, that’s three adaptations of Emma in two years.
Jane Austen's House, Hampshire, England. (Photo by Peter Thompson/Heritage Images/Getty Images)Heritage Images/Getty Images
Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson in Austen's Sense and Sensibility
Getty ImagesWhy this sudden fever? The exhibition puts it down to ‘serendipity’, but Austen is especially popular in periods of economic difficulty. In the recession of the early 90s, romantic escapism was all people wanted. The Monday after Pride and Prejudice began airing, over 500 people turned up at the quiet house in Chawton. At the height of ‘Darcymania’, Colin Firth was up on everyone’s wall. A generation of British stars were born — Firth, Winslet and Beckinsale became famous overnight — and the modern Austen industry was born with them.
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition was raging. TV producers were initially sceptical — screenwriter Andrew Davies recalled that when he wrote Pride and Prejudice in the 1980s, the BBC thought it was a ‘bit girly’ and ITV turned it down because it ‘wasn't ITV enough’. By 1993, however, they were desperately fighting to commission it. When the BBC won out, Davies offered to make Emma next, but was furious to discover they’d offered it to another writer. He went back to ITV to make his own version,
Cassy Austen (SYNNOVE KARLSEN), Jane Austen (PATSY FERRAN), Eliza Fowle (MADELEINE WALKER) in the BBC's Miss Austen
Robert ViglaskyThis wasn’t the only novel-worthy rivalry: over in Hollywood, executives at Miramax were pushing ahead with a modern remake of Emma set on New York’s Upper East Side when they found out that Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, a remake of Emma set in Beverly Hills, was also in production, and had to make theirs a period drama instead. Everyone wanted a piece of the action. Who can blame them when the demand was so high?
By this point, Austen Inc. was spreading even further afield. Helen Fielding, busy turning her Bridget Jones’ Diary columns into a novel, was so infatuated with the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice that she ‘just stole the plot and hung my columns on it’, which became a famous in-joke when Colin Firth played Mark Darcy. Needless to say, Bridget Jones was a worldwide hit — the fourth film hits cinemas this February. No matter the century, Austen’s plots are commercially irresistible.
‘Most of all, Austen fever has given birth to Regency fever, omnipresent in the last few years thanks to Netflix’s Bridgerton’
LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIXMost of all, Austen fever has given birth to Regency fever, omnipresent in the last few years thanks to Netflix’s Bridgerton. It’s no accident that the show begins in 1813, the year Pride and Prejudice was published, or that the first two seasons both follow Elizabeth and Mr Darcy’s enemies-to-lovers storyline. The Bridgerton family’s frothy and fabulous Regency world owes far more to Austen’s aesthetic fantasy than it does to real history. Pastel-coloured dresses, military jackets, stately homes — who can resist?
Lyme Hall reflected in the lake at Lyme Park, the setting for Pemberley in the BBC's 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice
Loop Images/Getty ImagesNot consumers, that’s for sure. In the thriving world of Austen merchandise, fans can get everything from mugs and tea towels to puzzles and board games. Museums have popped up everywhere Jane went, from Chawton and Bath to Winchester, where the house in which she spent her final weeks is opening to the public this year. The National Trust even has a ‘Pemberley Trail’, with Lyme Park, the BBC’s Pemberley stand-in, as its centrepiece. These days, she props our economy up so literally that she’s on our £10 notes. In Jane we trust.
‘She props our economy up so literally that she’s on our £10 notes’
Pool/Getty ImagesCould we be ripe for a new wave of Austenmania? The conditions — commercial enthusiasm, and an uncertain wider world — are certainly propitious. Get ready for more rival adaptations: as well as Miss Austen, there are two different Pride and Prejudice spin-offs on the way, a Dolly Alderton-penned remake for Netflix, potentially starring Emma Corrin, and The Other Bennet Sister, a BBC adaptation of Gill Hornby’s novel reimagining the life of Mary Bennet. It seems that we ardently admire and love her more than ever, as Mr Darcy might say.
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