From woodcuts to Colin Firth: how Jane Austen’s stories have been pictured

An image of Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility, by William Cubitt Cooke, wash drawing, 1892. Photograph: The Holburne Museum, Jo Hounsome Photography

For the 21st-century Jane Austen fan, the images of Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy in the beloved BBC series Pride and Prejudice or Anya Taylor-Joy’s big-screen portrayal of Emma may be the first to leap to mind.

But an exhibition opening in Bath celebrates the varied ways illustrators of Austen’s work and adapters of her novels have depicted some of her most cherished characters.