If you know what Darcy-mania is, you might know the importance of the date September 24, 1995. The day was made auspicious by the airing of BBC's six-part series Pride and Prejudice. Yes, it's the same novel that writer Jane Austen is best known for and no, we can never get enough of it no matter how many times it is adapted. Also gals, if you've always thought of actor Colin Firth as William Darcy, the male protagonist of the book and series, then this is where it all began.
The last episode of this particularly popular series alone was watched by ten million people. How's that for a testament to its mania? Did you know that it is this series that inspired Helen Fielding to write Bridget Jones’s Diary, another immensely popular book that was turned into a movie that starred (gasp) Colin Firth AKA Darcy himself!
Oh, the costumes, setting and everything else in between has us, and frankly, many others, swooning. That’s the magic of Pride and Prejudice. Through in its entirety, the series remained faithful to its source and yet, it still had its moments. To call this series a cultural phenomenon would be to describe it rightly. And no matter how many adaptations come and go, this one will remain a gem. This is not just us saying by the way. As a concluding statement, we leave you with these wise words of Professor Deborah Cartmell from DeMontford University, the author of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: The Relationship Between Text and Screen, who said this in an interview to BBC — “It’s almost usurped the original novel in the minds of the public.”
