‘Pride and Prejudice’ bicentenary: Who’s your favorite Darcy? (poll) By Marama Whyte at 1:00 pm, January 29, 2013 - @maramawhyte (HYPABLE)

VOTE (CLICK HERE) FOR YOU FAVORITE DARCY !!!

It’s the role of a lifetime – the chance to steam up the screen as Regency heart-throb Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. We’ve seen many Darcys over the years, but who was the best? Now you get to decide.

Yesterday was the bicentenary of the publication of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. There’s no need to be scandalised by our blatant objectification of these leading men, we did the literary appreciation and analysis part yesterday, so now we can get to the really important matter – who was the hottest Mr. Darcy? Ladies and gentlemen, get your votes ready.

First, straight to the source. What did Austen have to say about Darcy in Pride and Prejudice?

“…Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien; and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year.

The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.”

Colin Firth and the BBC class of '95 voted best Pride and Prejudice cast (RADIO TIMES)

RadioTimes.com poll names Firth and Jennifer Ehle, from the TV adaptation of Jane Austen's 200-year-old novel, the ultimate Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet

Ellie Walker-Arnott
1:05 PM, 28 January 2013

In honour of the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, we asked RadioTimes.com readers to take part in our poll to decide the ultimate cast from TV and film adaptations of the beloved literary romance.

We wondered if the votes might provide a new pairing of Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, or perhaps match one Mr Bennet with another Mrs B. But as it turned out, you thought the BBC's 1995 TV series, adapted by Andrew Davies, had already ticked almost all the boxes!

Aside from the role of Jane Bennet – which saw Rosamund Pike from the 2005 movie version pip 1995's Susannah Harker to the post with an impressive 50% of the vote – readers opted for the 1995 cast members in all of the categories. So we think it's fair to pronounce the TV mini-series the best ever Pride and Prejudice adaptation.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hasKmDr1yrA

READ MORE: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-01-28/colin-firth-and-the-bbc-class-of-95-voted-best-pride-and-prejudice-cast

'Pride and Prejudice,' story that launched a thousand spinoffs, turns 200 By Bryony Jones, CNN

Are you a "Pride and Prejudice" fan? Which is your favorite adaptation of the book? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

London (CNN) -- It's a simple love story: Girl meets guy, it's hate at first sight, and then they fall in love. "Pride and Prejudice," the original rom-com, turns 200 today, with fans around the world celebrating the story that launched a whole industry.

The tale of feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet and her relationship with the haughty, brooding Darcy is the stuff of spinoffs aplenty: Even if you've never read the original, chances are you've seen one of its many remakes, from Bridget Jones to Bollywood, zombie thrillers to murder mysteries.

But Jane Austen's best-known and most-loved novel, first published on January 28, 1813, and viewed by the author as her "own darling child" wasn't an immediate hit.

"It was very well received, and it made money, but it wasn't a massive bestseller in her day," says Louise West, curator of the Jane Austen House Museum at Chawton, in Hampshire.

Instead it became a slow-burn success, turning its creator -- after her early death in 1817 -- into a literary star. In his recent book "What Matters in Jane Austen?" expert John Mullan claims that only Shakespeare and Dickens "can rival her continuing, international appeal."

Cambridge University English professor Janet Todd puts Austen's enduring appeal down to "the mixture of simplicity and complexity -- her work looks so simple, so ordinary, and yet underneath, the more you look, the more you see, and the more complicated it becomes.

"Austen is one of the very few real crossover writers, who are popular with the public and also feted by critics and academia -- it is very rare."

"It's not just any old love story," says West. "It is also brilliantly written. Austen was the first truly modern novelist, and 'Pride and Prejudice' is full of irony, craft, careful plotting -- you read it for the story, but you get all these other layers of richness too."

But she says the secret of the story's success is down to its protagonists, Elizabeth and Darcy, "two terribly attractive characters who spark off each other in a very dynamic and sexy way," and to its heroine, in particular.

"'Pride and Prejudice' is the book that brings more people here than any other," says West. "They come looking for Elizabeth Bennet -- she is the character women aspire to be, she got the fairy story, and they want it to be real."


READ MORE: http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/28/world/europe/pride-and-prejudice-200th-anniversary/

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. DARCY!!!

Famous Actors Behind William Darcy of ‘Pride & Prejudice’ (ABC NEWS)

By Jennifer Abbey

Laurence Olivier

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of “Pride & Prejudice,” a story retold dozens of times in novels, films, TV shows and now a popular Internet video series.

Colin Firth has played Darcy three times

It’s often said that women like Jane Austen because they LOVE Mr. Darcy, the unlikely romantic hero of “Pride and Prejudice.”

Matthew Macfadyen

He’s the opposite of an action hero.  The anti-James Bond.

Brooding.  Aloof.  And socially awkward.  A rich, slightly finicky, older man, imprisoned by good manners.   But inside lurks a smoldering romantic flame others just don’t notice.

Martin Henderson

For the past 200 years, Fitzwilliam Darcy has been the Thinking Woman’s Dream Guy, stealing the heart not just of  Austen’s heroine Elizabeth Bennet but generations of young women.

So…. who’s your favorite Mr. Darcy?

READ MORE; http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/01/famous-actors-behind-william-darcy-of-pride-prejudice/

Alan Rickman tends to his own garden, back in director’s chair By Marlee Walters JANUARY 21, 2013 (CRITICAL MOB)

Rival landscape gardeners, hear us out: Alan Rickman.

Rickman hasn't directed since 1997 and hasn't teamed up with Kate Winslet since 1995's Sense and Sensibility, but that doesn't mean he's lost his touch. He's directing a period piece about two rival landscape gardeners (Winslet and Rust and Bone's Matthias Schoenaerts) commissioned to create a fountain for Louis XIV.


READ MORE: http://www.criticalmob.com/news/tv-and-film/alan_rickman_tends_to_his_own_garden_back_in_directors_chair

Happy Birthday, Mr. Darcy!! (HEROLD SCOTLAND) Barry Didcock Senior features writer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0ArRWExbbM

One of English literature's most enduring characters – thanks in part to his embodiment on screen by that troika of male totty Colin Firth, Laurence Olivier and Matthew Macfadyen – Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy celebrates his 200th birthday this month.

He is, of course, the romantic lead in Jane Austen's novel Pride And Prejudice, first published in three hard cover volumes on January 28 1813. But you probably knew that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVChdOFevEo

You may not have known that Austen was paid only £110 for the copyright, miserly when you consider the effect her creation would have on generations of readers, particularly those on the distaff side. In a 2004 poll for the Orange Prize for Fiction, Darcy was voted the romantic icon women would most like to date and the fictional character most women would like to invite to a dinner party.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHv4eHp_gUM

Men tend to look a little less favorably on him, however. "I never met a man who likes Darcy, though most women seem to," wrote literary critic John Carey. Olivier himself was unmoved by Darcy too. "I was very unhappy with the picture," he wrote in his autobiography of his 1940 film portrayal. "It was difficult to make Darcy into anything more than an unattractive-looking prig."

Maybe that's the appeal of Darcy, however. He isn't obvious, or easy or even particularly likeable. But, in the words of Martin Amis, he exhibits the ability of men to be "chastened, deepened, and finally democratized by the force of love."

READ MORE: http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/in-praise-of/in-praise-of-mr-darcy.19779751