How Jane Austen's Bit of Ivory Holds Up
Thus wrote Tad Mosel in "Jane Austen's Two Inches of Ivory," a talk he delivered in 1980 and wrote up four years later for the first volume of the Persuasions Occasional Papers, a publication of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA).
The title, of course, comes from Austen's own description of her way of writing in a letter: a "little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush." Austen evoked a similar idea in depicting the thoughts of the heroine of Emma (II:9): "A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer."
Now that it's December 2025, we are marking the novelist's 250th birthday. In 1975, there was far less fanfare surrounding her earlier milestone birthday when Mosel taught a course called Jane Austen at 200, at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
The world is a very different place 50 years later. Back in 1975, certainly, people read Jane Austen whose works were regularly included in college literature courses and adapted into frothy, romantic films many times over by that time. It is one of those that Mosel references in his article in leading up to his central insight:
Two or three times a year I even stay up until four o’clock in the morning to see Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier in the old movie version of the same story. But what usually emerges on the screen is similar to what is emerging for you now: it is not Jane Austen, but somebody’s idea of Jane Austen. And that can vary markedly from person to person and from time to time.
No question about it: Olivier and Garson version is very much a product of its own time. The costumes weren't anywhere near historically accurate, and even the dialog took on some tones of the 1940s. It was to be cheerful, escapist fun that even redeemed the character of Lady Catherine.
That was pretty much all that Mosel could access in terms of Jane Austen on a screen in the days before streaming or DVDs or even video recordings of one's favorite adaption. While there were a few television adaption in the 80s, the real shift in the "idea of Jane Austen" appears to be rooted in 1995 when Colin Firth's Fitzwilliam Darcy made women (many who never read Austen before) swoon.
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Jane Austen Duffle Bag |
In fact, the adaption's director's decision to have Mr. Darcy take a dip in the water became so iconic that the Jane Austen Museum featured the shirt he wore in an exhibit and some people who clearly never read the book have made themselves ridiculous in seriously accusing new adaptions that don't include that scene of "censoring" Jane Austen.
The 1995 adaption sparked obsession with Mr. Darcy as the ultimate romantic her. An explosion of fanfiction unconstrained by the standards Austen had to maintain when publishing as "a lady" followed. The internet made it all instantly accessible to the public even if it wasn't published as a book, though hundreds of variations have been. Absurd as some of the titles are, they still got adapted for the screen.
Now we have what was popular fiction in its day turned highbrow by its inclusion in the canon of great literary works studies in universities popularized for the public that are not necessarily great readers but who will watch a romantic film, obsess over it, and may even order a Regency gown and bonnet and call it cosplay. That cosplay has scaled up in ways no one would have dreamed of in 1975 as obsessions of Jane Austen adaptions have led to wild deviations off of the thin Austen basis in the fragment of Sanditon or even vaguely Regency fantasy adaptions like Bridgerton that allow for the fashions and the balls with a much more diverse cast of characters.
I gave this blog the title "Many Happy Return, Jane Austen" not just to allude to her 250th birthday on December 16, 2025 but to the many forms of return her writing has sparked. The prism Tad Mosel referred to has revealed new colors over the years in both big budget productions and in hundreds of fanfiction scribblers or Regency style fashion designers. There is no doubt in my mind that millions more people are aware of the author's birthday this year than in 1975. I also have no doubt that in 1975, there was very little on offer to mark a tribute to her other than the books themselves.
This is far from the case today. In fact, Jane Austen fans are demanding more Regency romances for their favorite characters.
The year following Jane Austen's 250th birthday is proving to be replete with Regency romance. There is a big screen adaption of huge success of Sense and Sensibility slated for release within the year. Plus Netflix has come out with its own versions of Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion. While these adaptions tend to disappoint purists, many who claim to be Jane Austen fans today seem to know her work only through the lens of adaptions and not through the original texts at all.
In fact, one of the biggest Austen adaption successes of the year was not penned by Austen but by Janice Hadlow. The Other Bennet Sister has led not just to a huge viewership of the series based on the novel but even to a promised Christmas special in December. Producers know that the Austen name and familiar characters means they have a solid audience for their adaptions.
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| Full watch collection here |
"The Other Bennet Sister" is Closer to Jane Eyre than Jane Austen
Pride, Prejudice and Persuasion: Obstacles to Happiness in Jane Austen's Novels
Three Janes, Two Governesses, and the Abolitionist Movement
The Big Bow-wow & Bit of Ivory
Jane Austen's Heroines
Jane Austen and Capability Brown
Pride and Prejudice in Job Applications
How "The Other Bennet Sister" subverts narrative convention
