It has launched Colin Firth’s heartthrob status, been given a Bollywood-style movie makeover and revamped as a zombie thriller novel.
Human nature has not changed in 200 years and so Pride and Prejudice can still tell us what makes people tick
In the next few days, Jane Austen’s enduring publishing success Pride and Prejudice will reach the 200th anniversary of its first appearance in print.
Despite the numerous screen adaptations, the zeitgeisty twists and ever-increasing ways to consume literary classics, the original book is still phenomenally popular and has been estimated to sell up to 50,000 copies each year in the UK.
Its continuing success in the old-fashioned paperback format comes despite the fact that as a work which is now out of copyright, it is possible to download it legally for free, with online retailers such as iTunes giving it away among dozens of classics for e-readers and iPads.
Novelist Austen’s opening line is ingrained on the memories of many of the millions who have read it over the years.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,” she wrote.
It has certainly generated a fortune of its own over the years, although Austen herself missed out on any vast riches from the book.
She sold the rights for £110, £40 less than she had hoped for, but she had avoided the potential to make a loss – which had been a possibility when she self-published Sense and Sensibility, although she had actually turned a £140 profit for that book.
Thomas Egerton made four times his outlay for the rights to the book from the first two editions, which came out in 1813, with the novel originally appearing in three volumes and costing 18 shillings.
Austen received her copy on January 27 and it was advertised the following day. Even the anniversary is something of a bonanza for the publishing world, with many new books about the writer, examinations of the history of the novel, a new high-end hardback edition and literary companions.
The story – which at its heart follows the relationship between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy – continues to enthral.
Despite being rejuvenated again and again, it holds a fascination on-screen as demonstrated by the BBC adaptation in 1995, with Colin Firth’s bullish portrayal of Mr Darcy making him into a household name, particularly for a scene in which he emerged soaking from a lake.
Six years later he effectively revisited the character when he played Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones’s Diary, which was loosely based on the Austen story.
Despite the success of the BBC version, a further version was made for cinemas in 2005, starring Matthew McFadyen as Darcy and Keira Knightley as Elizabeth, taking more than €90 million at the box office around the world.
A year earlier, Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha turned it into a Bollywood-style musical Bride And Prejudice.
Other celebrated adaptations have starred figures such as Laurence Olivier and Peter Cushing as Darcy.
In 2009, the book was overhauled to appeal to those with a taste for the undead to become Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
One of the difficulties in compiling accurate sales figures has been that having fallen out of copyright, it exists in dozens of forms.
At one stage it was calculated that 130 different editions of the book were available online in the US alone.
Sales of new editions do not always tell the full story, with many readers discovering the book without buying new editions.
“A lot of the books find their way into charity shops to be resold and reread,” said honorary secretary of the Jane Austen Society Maureen Stiller. It also continues to be popular at public libraries.
Writer Susannah Fullerton, whose book Happily Ever After: Celebrating Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was published this month by Frances Lincoln, believes the book has endured because its themes are still relevant today.
“Pride and Prejudice is an invitation: it demands to be talked about,” said Fullerton in her book.
“It asks readers today, and readers to come, to enter its world, engage with its characters and issues, find answers for the questions it poses.
“It makes us think about friendships, about relationships with parents and siblings, about finding happiness in marriage, about demanding employers, about chance and the role it plays in human affairs.
“Human nature has not changed in 200 years and so Pride and Prejudice can still tell us what makes people tick. And of course it forces every reader to consider the many forms of ‘pride’ and ‘prejudice ‘ encountered by everyone every day in this world in which we live.”
The nation clearly holds Pride and Prejudice dear after all these years, so much so that in 2003, when the BBC held a huge poll to find the UK’s favourite novel, it came second only to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
In the coming weeks, the BBC will celebrate the anniversary of the book by recreating a Regency ball, like one featured in the pages.
Fullerton believes the book continues to give more to the reader on repeated visits.
“Rereading Pride and Prejudice is as necessary as listening again to favourite music or looking once more at a much-loved painting,” she said.
“For really no one ever reads the same Pride and Prejudice twice.
“A first reading alters you; by a second reading you are a slightly different person. Every subsequent reading reveals different things about you and your world.”