Free Republic

In his illustrious 50-year career, screenwriter Andrew Davies has forged a formidable reputation for creating strong female characters. But now he says he is not allowed to make his women anything but feisty – by the powerful female executives who run television. Davies, who is known for adaptations of classics such as Pride And Prejudice and War & Peace, says bosses want to see an image of themselves projected on screen, and veto any 'droopy, soppy' girls he wants to pen.

Nearly 200 years after Jane Austen‘s untimely death, crime novelist Lindsay Ashford has come up with a new explanation: arsenic poisoning. Austen, the English author of such classic novels as “Pride and Prejudice” and “Sense and Sensibility,” died in 1817 at age 41. Her death has been attributed to everything from cancer to Addison’s disease. But Ashford, who moved to Austen’s village of Chawton three years ago and started writing her new crime novel in the former home of Austen’s brother, stumbled across another possibility — that Austen died of arsenic poisoning. ... Ashford recognized that Austen’s symptoms could be...

Jane Austen's "own darling child" Pride and Prejudice is celebrating its 200th birthday. Although out of copyright and available for free on e-readers, it is estimated that Pride and Prejudice sells up to 50,000 copies each year in the UK alone.

A new novel that retells the story of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice from the point of view of its servants has been sold around the world. Longbourn, by Jo Baker, was snapped up by US and UK publishers last week. "Jane Austen was my first experience of grown-up literature," said Baker. "But as I read and re-read her books, I began to become aware that if I'd been living at the time, I wouldn't have got to go to the ball; I would have been stuck at home with the sewing." The 39-year-old British author said she drew her...

An Unforgiving Temper By Gail Head Foy anyone familiar with and a fan of Jane Austen's works, particularly her novel, "Pride and Prejudice," Gail Head's, "An Unforgiving Temper," is a must-have and must-read. Imagine: What if Elizabeth never went to Pemberley? What if the events in Ramsgate ended in an explosive conflict that set Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam's course on a different path that was filled with implacable resentment and filled others with a rapacious thirst for revenge? "An Unforgiving Temper," is the captivating story of what Darcy and Elizabeth's journey might have been. This 502 page, riveting novel is...

2005 has been a tough year for major movie studios, certainly. But it’s been a dreadful year for independent studios. There were no runaway hits, like “The Passion of the Christ,” “Farenheit 911,” “My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding,” or “The Blair Witch Project.” Nor were there any "art-house" films which ran away into major movies. Time Warner had a hit with “March of the Penguins,” but that can be considered “independent” only through a marketing decision to release it from Warner Independent Productions, instead of Warner Brothers. The biggest disaster was Miramax. Long ago bought out by Disney, the curtains...