Jane Austen in Hollywood

In 1995 and 1996 six film or television adaptations of Jane Austen's novels were produced-an unprecedented number. More amazing, all were critical and/or box office successes. What accounts for this explosion of interest? Much of the appeal of these films lies in our nostalgic desire at the end of the millennium for an age of greater politeness and sexual reticence. Austen's ridicule of deceit and pretentiousness also appeals to our fin de siècle sensibilities. The novels were changed, however, to enhance their appeal to a wide popular audience, and the revisions reveal much about our own cult.

Watching ourselves watching / Linda Troost and Sayre Greenfield -- Out of the drawing room, onto the lawn / Rachel M. Brownstein -- Balancing the courtship hero: masculine emotional display in film adaptations of Austen's novels / Cheryl L. Nixon -- Misrepresenting Jane Austen's ladies: revising texts (and history) to sell films / Rebecca Dickson -- Austen, class, and the American market / Carol M. Dole -- Jane Austen, film, and the pitfalls of postmodern nostalgia / Amanda Collins -- "A correct taste in landscape": Pemberley as fetish and commodity / H. Elisabeth Ellington -- Mr. Darcy's body: privileging the female gaze / Lisa Hopkins -- Emma becomes clueless / Suzanne Ferriss -- "As if!": translating Austen's ironic narrator to film / Nora Nachumi -- Emma Thompson's Sense and sensibility as gateway to Austen's novel / M. Casey Diana -- "Piracy is our only option": postfeminist intervention in Sense and sensibility / Kristin Flieger Samuelian -- Feminist implications of the silver screen Austen / Devoney Looser -- Mass marketing Jane Austen: men, women, and courtship in two film adaptations / Deborah Kaplan -- The mouse that roared: Patricia Rozema's Mansfield Park / Linda Troos…