It’s one of the bookshelf’s classics, a tale about the wealthy Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet and now it’s been re-written, from the servants’ viewpoint.
The new novel retells the story of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and is being sold around the world.
Longbourn, by Jo Baker, was snapped up by both US and UK publishers last week.
“Jane Austen was my first experience of grown-up literature,” said Baker.
“But as I read and re-read her books, I began to become aware that if I’d been living at the time, I wouldn’t have got to go to the ball, I would have been stuck at home with the sewing.”
The 39-year-old British writer said she drew her inspiration from her family’s years in service.
“Aware of that English class thing, Pride and Prejudice begins to read a little differently,” she explained.
Longbourn follows a romance between a newly-arrived footman and a housemaid in the Bennet household that runs parallel to the love story between Mr Darcy and Elizabeth.
“I sent it out last week,” Clare Alexander, Baker’s agent, told BBC. “[US publisher] Knopf bought it Monday. On Wednesday, it was bought by Doubleday in the UK.
“By Thursday the film rights had gone. By Friday, we had signed up two foreign translations.”
“Longbourn is a piece of art that emerges from a much-loved classic,” said Alexander of Baker’s fifth novel.
“It is immensely satisfying to have worked with a talented writer from the outset and to see her take flight. Longbourn will make her a literary star.”
Translation rights have been sold in Spain, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Brazil, France and Sweden.
Film rights have been bought by Random House Studio and Focus Features, which distributed the 2005 film version of Pride and Prejudice in the US.
It’s been two centuries since her death, but Austen’s novels continue to inspire adaptations and spin-offs in both book and film form.
A contemporary version of Sense and Sensibility, written by Joanna Trollope, will be published later this year.
Longbourn will be published in hardback and e-book format later this year, with a paperback release to follow in 2014.
