HarperCollins Hires Joanna Trollope to Rewrite Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility

Posted on September 14, 2011

The Guardian reports that British author Joanna Trollope has been commissioned by HarperCollins to write a contemporary version of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. The novel is scheduled to be published in Fall, 2013.

Trollope says, "This is a great honour and an even bigger challenge. It is a hugely exciting proposal to attempt the reworking of one of the best novels written by one of our greatest novelists. This is a project which will require consummate respect above all else; not an emulation, but a tribute."

The Telegraph says Joanna Trollope is "regularly described as the modern Jane Austen," but the author says such comparisons make her "twitch."

In a FAQ on her website, Joanna Trollope writes, "Comparisons with Jane Austen make me twitch. She is a Great: I am a Good - on a good day.... I see myself as writing accessible and I hope, thoughtful, contemporary fiction for men and women, about the very dilemmas and situations that they encounter in daily life."

HarperCollins also plans to commission five more authors to write modern versions of Austen's novels. The Guardian says HarperCollins is currently in talks with "authors of global literary significance" for modern takes on Austen's tales. The names of the other authors have not yet been announced.