Jane Austen is 250 years old and as fresh as ever

(and it's Mr Knightley for me all the way)

The passage above is from Emma, but I can still clearly remember the moment I read the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice, when I was 11 years old.

I’d never heard of the book, which I found in a random bookcase, but the cover featured an illustration of ladies in pretty dresses and large hats, which was enough to catch my interest, so I opened it up and read that famous opener.

I read it once, not entirely sure I understood, then read it again and I can remember the lightening flash as I realised that the lady writer had meant it exactly as I first thought.

I didn’t know the term ‘irony’ then, but I knew it when I saw it and I liked it. A lot. I’ve been a devoted Jane Austen fan ever since.

And of course the double triple joy is that as well as the heaven of the books – we have all the added and different blisses of all the film and TV versions, plus the BBC’s brilliant radio drama adaptations.

I don’t put them any lower down than the original texts. They are not lesser to me, just dif…