An interesting article in today’s Times (£). It opens with this:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,” reads the famous opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice. It is perhaps Jane Austen’s most oft-quoted line, and yet it has been universally left out of the many screen adaptations of the novel.

Now, however, Olivia Colman is to deliver the words as a flustered Mrs Bennet, as seen in a trailer for Netflix’s forthcoming miniseries. [J4MB: It’s surprising to see the aforementioned line in a usually feminist-compliant Netflix script.]

The decision to give the line, which is spoken through the narrator in the book, to Mrs Bennet highlights the character’s obsession with matchmaking, the writer Dolly Alderton said. “It was most natural for her to take it because it’s all she thinks about,” she added.

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