With new adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility arriving on our screens this autumn, television’s long-running love affair with Jane Austen shows little sign of abating. But there are other 18th-century writers with whom TV could have a wonderful love affair, too.
One writes about a woman who disguises herself as four different people to pursue the same man. Another writes about a woman becomes so obsessed with romance novels that she struggles to distinguish fiction from reality. In other’s work, a young heroine navigates the dangers of high society while a sheltered young woman uncovers dark family secrets in a remote castle.