Dear readers, Wednesday night I queued up the mid-1990s TV adaptation of “Middlemarch” — I’ve just read it for the first time, and was eager to prolong its joys. (OK, I also wanted to see the fabulous jewels in the Brooke sisters’ possession.) I did experience a touch of the cognitive dissonance many readers feel when actors don’t resemble the images we develop in our minds of certain characters. Then again, I was perversely delighted by the styling of the Rev. Edward Casaubon, the husband we’re made to root against; there’s no way I could’ve possibly imagined a hairline as circuitous or a forehead as capacious as what I saw onscreen. I shouldn’t be surprised by my enjoyment. The series is the work of Andrew Davies, the 88-year-old Welsh screenwriter who is British television’s most celebrated and prolific adapter of literary classics. He is particularly loved for bringing the work of Jane Austen to screens; a British newspaper once called him the “undisputed czar of sexed-up classics.” Yes, he is responsible for the unforgettable scene of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in “Pride and Prejudice,” strutting across the grass in a sopping wet shirt. My colleague Sarah Lyall visited Davies in Kenilworth, England, and spoke with him about his decades-long career. Despite all he’s accomplished, he’s still dreaming up new angles. “If you’re saying that everything has to be just like the book,” as he said, “then what’s the point of an adaptation?” See you on Tuesday. Like this email?
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