Adaptation revisited Television and the classic novel [Paperback]

Offers a critical reappraisal of a prolific and popular genre, as well as bringing new material into the broader field of Television Studies. Surveys the traditional discourses about adaptation, unearthing the unspoken assumptions and common misconceptions that underlie them and explores the problems inherent in previous approaches, developing an original perspective that considers the particularly televisual nature of this genre. Examines four major British serials: 'Brideshead Revisited', 'Pride and Prejudice', 'Moll Flanders', and 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' revealing the genre's importance in constituting and moderating our understanding of the past and of television itself. The first sustained and coherent book on the subject in almost a decade.

List of figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part I: Re:writing adaptations

1. What is (an) adaptation?

2. Criticism revealed

3. Theory revisited

4. Television adaptations in the televisual context

Part II: The adaptations

Introduction to Part II

5. Brideshead Revisited (1981)

6. Pride and Prejudice (1995)

7. The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (1996)

8. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1996)

9. Reconfiguring the genre

Bibliography

Filmography

Index

Sarah Cardwell is Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury