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.
Jane Austen in popular culture
Such is the appeal of Austen in Asia that during the period when Korea was a Japanese colony (1905-1945) Austen was first translated into Korean as the Japanese colonial administration- which always justified itself on the grounds that Korea was hopelessly backward and in need of Japanese rule to progress- sought to use Austen's books as an example of the sort of cultural progress the country was experiencing under Japanese rule. It should be noted that in Asia during this period, books by Western authors were always seen as embodying modernity and progress, and thus Austen in colonial Korea was presented as a symbol of modernity, at least during the so-called "Cultural Rule" period (1920–37) when Japanese rule was more moderate as compared to prior and succeeding periods. The South Korean writer Park Wansuh wrote two novels influenced by "Pride and Prejudice", "A Faltering Afternoon" (1977) and "Pride and Fantasy" (1980) both set in Yusin era South Korea. In "A Faltering Afternoon", three sisters from a lower-middle-class background who resemble Elizabeth, Jane and Lydia Bennet respectively find that their only hope of social-economic success comes with marrying the right men. Unlike "Pride and Prejudice", two of the Ho sisters' relationships end unhappily and only Ho Malhi, the sister who resembles Elizabeth Bennet, ends up well with her choice of a man. Hŏ Sŏng, the once successful small businessman who was now struggling as the "chaebol" came to dominate the South Korean economy in the 1970s, resembled Mr. Bennet as he watches his daughters' "quest" to find the ideal husband, through unlike him, Hŏ ends up committing suicide on the day of his daughter's wedding. In "Pride and Fantasy", Park took on one of the most painful subjects in South Korea at the time, namely the fact that the "Chinilpa" elite who had served Japan in the colonial period was the same elite that ruled South Korea in the 1970s. General Park Chung-hee, the military dictator of South Korea from 1961 until his assassination in 1979, had started his career as an officer in the Manchukuo Army and served with the Kwantung Army in its campaigns to "pacify" Manchukuo. During Park's rule, he applied the same methods he learned in Japanese service to his own people, and in the 1960s-70s, South Korea was one of the world's worst human rights abusers. "Pride and Fantasy" concerns the relationship between two men, one of whom is a male version of Elizabeth Bennet, and the other whom resembles Mr. Darcy. The Bennet-like Namsang came from a family that resisted Japanese rule and were ruined as a result while the Darcy-like Hyǒn comes from a "chinilpa" family that became fabulously rich by collaborating with the Japanese.