Yeah, Jane Austen’s easily one of the top 20 English novelists of all time, and one of my personal favorites. She gets kind of a mixed appreciation these days bc the movies made from her novels usually focus on the romance (often in a way that would have scandalized her) and skimp on her commentary about human nature and society’s pressures. And plus her prose is just gorgeous and that is difficult to adapt to film. Probably the best adaptation is the BBC 1980 Pride and Prejudice miniseries ( wikipedia , tubi ) which was adapted by Fay Weldon, who was a novelist in her own right. That miniseries turns a lot of Austen’s prose into dialogue, which is beautiful to hear in that context, though as a consequence the series is a little slow for a wide modern audience. Really you have to read the books themselves.
She’s also incredibly funny (and sometimes savage) which also gets lost in many adaptations, since it’s in her commentary and not necessarily in the dialog.
She was not a woman of many words; for, unlike people in general, she proportioned them to the number of her ideas.
No love for Jane Austen? Some of her works are all time classic. They could probably compete with top 10 literature work of 17th-18th century.
Another author that’s under appreciated would be Gertrude Stein.
Yeah, Jane Austen’s easily one of the top 20 English novelists of all time, and one of my personal favorites. She gets kind of a mixed appreciation these days bc the movies made from her novels usually focus on the romance (often in a way that would have scandalized her) and skimp on her commentary about human nature and society’s pressures. And plus her prose is just gorgeous and that is difficult to adapt to film. Probably the best adaptation is the BBC 1980 Pride and Prejudice miniseries ( wikipedia , tubi ) which was adapted by Fay Weldon, who was a novelist in her own right. That miniseries turns a lot of Austen’s prose into dialogue, which is beautiful to hear in that context, though as a consequence the series is a little slow for a wide modern audience. Really you have to read the books themselves.
She’s also incredibly funny (and sometimes savage) which also gets lost in many adaptations, since it’s in her commentary and not necessarily in the dialog.