A wit once declared, no woman has given more enjoyment in bed than Agatha Christie, and while it’s true no author can touch Dame Christie on sheer volume, when it comes to enduring pleasure, Jane Austen is in a class of her own. For more than two centuries, Ms Austen has kept fans riveted by the genteel passions of Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, Emma and Mr Knightley and Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth as they thrust and parry towards matrimony in English country drawing rooms. Since it was first published in 1813, Austen’s masterpiece Pride and Prejudice has sold more than 20 million copies and been continuously in print for 200 years.
Austen poured passion onto the page, conjuring such immortal lines as, “You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.” She is the reason Colin Firth emerged from a frigid English pond with a wet white shirt clinging to his chest, and she laid the foundation for modern romances and. Yet, according to the official history, the 19th century author was an unmarried virtuoso who never fell in love. Her nephew dismissed any hint of romance, callously writing that she was “singularly barren”. But fans continue to wonder what inspired her enduring romances, and speculation about her love life persists.
