Spare us from romcom Austen. Give me the dark side of 19th-century life any day | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

"News that Andrew Davies the man behind the nation's most beloved Pride and Prejudice adaptation is planning to have Jane Austen's Emma die in childbirth drew gasps from audiences at Cliveden literary festival last weekend. Davies is planning to explore the dark undercurrents of Austen's work in adaptations of Emma, Mansfield Park and unfinished novel The Watsons, and while his ideas may shock those fans wedded to Austen as a romcom author, I couldn't be happier."

"A few years ago, though, Austen fatigue set in for me. Maybe it's the fact I've seen at least three Emmas and three Pride and Prejudices, and read each of her novels at least thrice. There are so many other stories in the world, many waiting to be discovered and adapted. Unless there was some new spin or interpretation being offered, I simply stopped being interested."

"If comments from readers of the Times are anything to go by, audiences will get in a froth about how woke Davies's adaptations are when they make it to our screens, especially in their approach to slavery. Austen makes passing reference to slavery in Emma and Mansfield Park; in the latter it is clear that this is where the Bertram family have made their money."

Andrew Davies plans adaptations of Emma, Mansfield Park and the unfinished The Watsons that explore darker undercurrents of Jane Austen's work, including a proposed death in childbirth for Emma. The announcement provoked audible shock at a Cliveden literary festival. Repeated exposure to multiple Austen adaptations and rereadings produced fatigue and reduced interest in further traditional retellings without new interpretations. The forthcoming adaptations are expected to foreground slavery's presence in Emma and Mansfield Park, making explicit the Bertram family's Antigua plantation wealth and potentially depicting Sir Thomas and Tom repressing a slave revolt. Fanny's raised topic of slavery and her cousins' dead silence can be recontextualized to reflect 19th-century readers' likely responses.

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