The title of this essay refers to the hours I spent searching the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice for the above-referenced bum, a derriere I was convinced I had seen in viewings past. Unfortunately, I was mistaken. No such shot exists; what I was remembering was an amalgamation of several scenes in which Darcy, as played by Colin Firth, should have been naked. Firth himself reported that, in one scene at least, he would have bared all had the BBC allowed the original screenplay to be filmed unrevised. Instead, when Firth’s Darcy dives into a lake to cool his passion for Elizabeth Bennet, he does it clothed. That scene, which is not in the novel, helped ignite “Darcy-mania,” an obsession so potent that it has itself become the subject of novels and films. No such response greeted the 1995 adaptations of Persuasion or Sense and Sensibility or Patricia Rozema’s 1999 adaptation of Mansfield Park. Compared to these films, the 1995 adaptation of Austen’s third novel is libido on toast. Drawing over eleven million viewers in Britain alone, the mini-series raises a question: how does one translate the erotic energy in Austen’s novels to screen?

To some, the question might seem preposterous; one might as well ask how to transform iron to gold. Charlotte Brontë found little ardor in Austen’s novels. Writing to George Henry Lewes, she describes Pride and Prejudice as a “carefully cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but . . . no open country, no bonny beck.” To W. S. Williams, she declares that the “Passions” were unknown to Austen, who was “a complete and most sensible lady, but a rather incomplete, and rather insensible (not senseless) woman.” Notwithstanding her genius, Bronte seems, in regard to Jane Austen, to have been a bit narrow-minded and insensible herself. Passion is present in Austen’s novels, but it is not expressed in the teeth-gnashing, head-banging mode of a Rochester or Heathcliff. Her characters rarely—if ever—voice the depth and intensity of their desires. And that is what makes her novels so sexy. The erotic energy in Austen’s novels requires repression; it is generated in the gaps between what the protagonists feel and what they can say or do about it given the social mores with which they live.

Inperhaps the most famous scene in Andrew Davies’s 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Colin Firth emerges from a pond clad in only a clinging white shirt and a pair of wet breeches. In the 2020 adaptation of Sanditon, Sidney Parker walks out of the sea buck naked and dripping before a bedazzled Charlotte Heywood. Despite the intentional lack of breeches, Parker’s moment—a direct homage to Darcy by Davies, who wrote the screenplay—raised far fewer eyebrows than the original. Apparently, the idea that adaptations of Austen’s novels are not only romantic but sexy has become something of a commonplace in popular culture. The success of Sanditon, and of Austenesque fiction, which includes titles like Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife and Seducing Mr. Darcy, as well as discussions on fan-based internet sites, confirms the idea that Jane Austen’s novels have become a potent aphrodisiac for many of her admirers. Even New York Times notable book Longbourn, the first Austen spin-off to be lauded as serious literary fiction, pulses with sensual detail. Clearly, Austen’s novels turn people on.

Jane Austen, Sex, and Romance: Engaging with Desire in the Novels and Beyond explores this phenomenon. If Austen’s popular appeal springs largely from her ability to convey her characters’ romantic and sexual desires—and to tap into those of her readers—then an understanding of this dimension of her work is crucial to appreciating not only the novels, but the countless works of fiction, film, and other media that they have generated in our time. As scholars like Devoney Looser and Juliette Wells, among others, have argued, those of us who write about and teach Austen in the academy can no longer ignore the dynamic relationship between Austen’s work and the majority of her readers—no longer, that is, separate a static idea of Austen from what readers do with Austen. As members of a diverse and ever-expanding audience, we need to stop fighting over who is “right” about Austen in order to see what we can learn from one another. This requires confronting the conflicting ways we talk—or avoid talking—about sex and romance in Austen. For this reason, Jane Austen, Sex, and Romance zeroes in not just on the erotics of Austen’s novels and their adaptations, but on the discourse that surrounds this divisive topic.

First and foremost, we want to thank our contributors, who enthusiastically embraced the concept of a book that bridges such varied approaches to engaging with sex and romance in Austen’s novels, adaptations, and communities. Their interest in the topic and the diversity of their perspectives and expertise made our work on this collection as eye-opening as it was pleasurable. We warmly thank Sonia Kane, editorial director, University of Rochester Press, for her belief in the book, and her involvement and support from its earliest stages. We also want to thank the Jane Austen Society of North America, which enabled conversations with diverse lovers of Austen.

As many of our colleagues and friends are aware, we have been thinking about this book since we met in graduate school. We want to thank everyone who helped us along the way for encouraging our fascination with Austen and sex. Finally, our deepest gratitude goes to our families, who gave us the space, time, and support that allowed us to make this book real.

This chapter grew out of a series of conversations about the opportunities and challenges of teaching eighteenth-century literature in general education courses. At the panel that served as the impetus for this collection, we discov- ered that we each teach Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and its adaptations as primary texts in our general education courses. We also discovered that our reasons for doing so and our assignments differed, as did our courses, which diverged at almost every point—geographic location, classroom mode (online or face-to-face), temporal span, outcome goals, and level and type of student. This chapter traces what we learned from our experiences, and from one another.

Our chapter, like Misty Krueger's and Catherine Ingrassia’s,aims to broaden the ways we think about and teach one of the most widely read and widely adapted authors of any century. But while our focus is on one particular novel and its adaptations, the teaching strategies and assignments we describe are portable to classes that assign different texts and adaptations. We hope that our chapter, like Jodi Wyett’s, highlights the value of teach- ing eighteenth-century texts in the general education classroom and offers useful teaching strategies for how to do so successfully across platforms and institutions.

Nora Nachumi's Interpretation and Adaptation was a five-week intro- ductory-level course taught online to undergraduates at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women and Yeshiva College for Men in New York City. Heather King's semester-long course—Jane Austen: Pride, Prejudice, and Adaptations—was an upper-level seminar at the University of Redlands in Southern California, and it was cross-listed among three departments: English Literature, Media and Visual Culture Studies (MVC), and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS). Interpretation and Adaptation ful- filled the general education requirement of “interpreting literature and the arts” for students at Stern College for Women, and it counted toward the English major requirement for students on both campuses. Pride, Prejudice, and Adaptations fulfilled the general education requirement in the category “humanities: literature,” addressed student learning outcomes in all three majors with which it was cross-listed, and fulfilled the “early literature” requirement for English majors.

When Samuel Johnson set out for London in March 1737 he did so in the company of his former student, David Garrick. To say that Johnson’s choice of traveling companion was fortunate is an understatement. Not only would Garrick be remembered as the foremost actor of his age but, as manager of the Theatre Royal at Drury Lane, he would, in 1749, stage Johnson’s only play, Irene. In 1737, however, Johnson was the one determined to brave London’s theater world. His plan was to finish Irene, to see it acted and published, and, in doing so, to establish himself as a man of letters. His timing could hardly have been worse.

The Licensing Act

On June 21, 1737 – before Johnson finished Irene –Parliament passed the Licensing Act, a law which changed the face of London’s theater world. Since the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, only two theaters had been authorized by royal patent to present plays, giving them an effective duopoly. These “patent theaters,” as they were called, enjoyed a fair amount of freedom. But the Licensing Act was designed to prevent the production of plays critical of Walpole’s government, and it reinforced the prohibition of plays being performed in anything other than the patent theaters. All new plays, additions to old plays, prologues, and epilogues had to be approved by the Examiner of Plays, a subordinate of the Lord Chamberlain.