Jane Austen
Austen's novels have resulted in sequels, prequels and adaptations of almost every type, from soft-core pornography to fantasy. From the 19th century, her family members published conclusions to her incomplete novels, and by 2000 there were over 100 printed adaptations. The first dramatic adaptation of Austen was published in 1895, Rosina Filippi's "Duologues and Scenes from the Novels of Jane Austen: Arranged and Adapted for Drawing-Room Performance", and Filippi was also responsible for the first professional stage adaptation, "The Bennets" (1901). The first film adaptation was the 1940 MGM production of "Pride and Prejudice" starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. BBC television dramatisations since the 1970s have attempted to adhere meticulously to Austen's plots, characterisations and settings. The British critic Robert Irvine noted that in American film adaptations of Austen's novels, starting with the 1940 version of "Pride and Prejudice" and continuing on to today, class is subtly downplayed as the United States is officially an egalitarian nation where all people are equal and the society of Regency England depicted by Austen that is grounded in a hierarchy based upon the ownership of land and the antiquity of the family name is one that Americans cannot embrace in its entirety.
First Impressions (musical)
When Jane Austen wrote her first novel, a novel about the Bennet family of Longbourn, she called it First Impressions, but she couldn’t find a publisher. However, once "Sense & Sensibility", Austen’s second novel, became a popular success, T. Egerton of Whitehall, the publisher of "Sense & Sensibility", agreed to release First Impressions with a new name: "Pride & Prejudice". In this early instance of successful branding, a novel called "First Impressions" went nowhere, but given a new title, "Pride & Prejudice" quickly became one of the great classics of Western literature.