Dressing and Undressing in Pride and Prejudice: Reading Austen's Novel and its Screen Adaptations

The town hall was packed on Thursday evening for the last of the free university events of the Literary Festival.  The talk was about one of the most popular books in the English-speaking world: Pride and prejudice by Jane Austen: in particular the relationship between the novel and two screen adaptations of the work.

 Professor Deborah Wynne described how in the 1940 film version starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson the costume was not historically accurate.  The dresses were wide and tended to dominate the screen.  This was because of the time in which it was made - a fantasy reaction in gleaming satin to the austerity imposed by war.  The costumes of the 1995 TV adaptation starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle was more true to the times, but featured scenes of undressing that didn't actual feature in the novel, but certainly added to the appeal of the film to modern audiences.

It was a very interesting and well-paced lecture much appreciated by the audience and there was a lot of interest in other similar lectures that are going to take place in the university on the near future.  I am looking forward to these too.