How The Other Bennet Sister Star Learned To Love Austen

But in a recent interview with Variety at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival, the show’s star admitted she’d never read Pride and Prejudice, on which both Janice Hadlow’s The Other Bennet Sister novel and its following BBC period drama are based, before landing the part.

“It’s mad, isn’t it? But I’m from North Yorkshire and I just thought Jane Austen wasn’t a writer for me. She was more for posh southern people. I used to read loads of Brontë because that was the world I was from,” Ella said.

(For what it’s worth, Wuthering Heights author Charlotte Brontë thought roughly the same thing about Austen).

Still, the actor continued, reading the Regency writer’s most iconic book changed her mind.

“Her social commentary is so good and she speaks so much about class, which of course is universal wherever you live,” Ella, whose character Mary Bennet was pretty poorly depicted in the novel, said.

“She skewers people who are obsessed with wealth and materialism, and it actually feels like she’s on my side.”

Ella had previously praised Austen’s writing, saying she liked that the author addressed social commentary without shoving them “down your throat”.

She added, “Mrs Bennet just doesn’t value Mary in the way that she values the other sisters, because she sees their values as so closely linked to their marriageability”.

Speaking to HuffPost UK previously, Dr Shelley Galpin, a lecturer in Media, Culture, and Creative Industries at King’s College London, said that the TV series is a great pick for fans of the book.

“It struck me as I watched it that Mary is essentially playing the ‘Lizzie’ role from P&P. In Austen’s novel, Lizzie is supposed to be a little awkward and lacking in social niceties (in comparison to perfect Jane!) and less attractive than her sister,” she stated.