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This viewpoint by Professor Amanda Vickery is originally from Radio Times magazine<\/strong><\/a>, on sale now.<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s a truth universally acknowledged that Bridgerton<\/a> has rebooted the Regency. Revisiting Jane Austen is inevitable, so it was only a matter of time before Netflix<\/a> did just that. The streaming service\u2019s romcom version of Austen\u2019s last novel Persuasion<\/a> (1817) hits the screens on 15th July. Fox had its own Persuasion in the works, but cancelled last year when Netflix secured Dakota Johnson to play Anne Elliot.<\/p>\n But then Austen is a bankable brand. She is unique among writers in enjoying high-brow, middle-brow and mass appeal. For Austen\u2019s ardent fans, her novels capture something universal about the human condition, which resonates as easily in 21st-century California as in the polite drawing rooms of the Regency.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n However, when the trailer dropped recently, many Janeites were perplexed by the script and characterisation, taking to Twitter to express their dismay. One bemoaned, \u201cBy making her sassy, bold and flirty, they sap the story of the heart-wrenching angst and suffering.\u201d They had a point.<\/p>\n Anne is Austen\u2019s saddest heroine. She is also, at 27, the oldest. Dissuaded from marrying an impecunious naval officer, \u201cher bloom had vanished early\u201d\u2026 \u201cFaded and thin\u201d, downtrodden, disregarded and painfully dutiful, she is no free-spirited extrovert.<\/p>\n When Anne finally re-encounters Captain Wentworth, the suitor she had rejected seven years earlier, he reports her \u201caltered beyond his knowledge\u201d, and she must helplessly watch him grow enraptured by a neighbour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n