# ‘Jane Austen is for everyone’: novelist Diana Reid on adapting Sense and Sensibility – and surprising Brits with her accent

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/jane-austen-is-for-everyone-novelist-diana-reid-on-adapting-sense-and-sensibility-and-surprising-brits-with-her-accent/
- Published: 2026-10-22T14:00:29+00:00
- Updated: 2026-10-22T14:42:38+00:00
- Original publisher: The Guardian (publisher lean: Left)
- Original article: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/oct/23/jane-austen-is-for-everyone-novelist-diana-reid-sense-and-sensibility-adaptation
- Topics: Business, Culture, Entertainment, Film, Markets

## Key points

- Diana Reid has adapted Austen’s *Sense and Sensibility* for a new film.
- She wrote most of the dialogue, drawing on Austen’s style.
- Reid sees the sisters’ relationship as the story’s central love story.

## Summary

Australian novelist Diana Reid has adapted Jane Austen’s *Sense and Sensibility* for a new film, arguing that Austen belongs to anyone who wants to engage with her work. Reid says her Australian nationality did not make her question her right to adapt the novel, though some British audiences and media have been surprised by her accent.

Reid wrote most of the screenplay’s dialogue herself, using about 25 lines from Austen’s 1811 novel and studying its rhythm and sentence structure. Directed by Georgia Oakley, the adaptation follows sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood as they face financial insecurity and complicated romances; Reid sees their bond as the story’s central relationship. The project revisits the novel on film 30 years after Ang Lee’s 1995 adaptation, which Reid greatly admires.

---
Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.