I’ve taken stock and come to a realisation. I’m more familiar with (multiple) variations and interpretations of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice than I am with the source text. I’ve never studied it and although I feel fairly confident I’ll have read it during the literary deep dive of my teenage and university years, there's doubt niggling at me that the intention was there but it never came to fruition. I definitely read Northanger Abbey but that’s unfortunately beside the point.

For reference then I’ll have to use to the much-lauded 1995 BBC miniseries memorable to many for ‘the wet shirt scene’ but to me for the total misfire of Darcy’s declaration of love to Elizabeth in the Collins’ claustrophobic parsonage. It’s painful to watch. You ‘ardently’ wish Darcy had got the tone right (or at least not been so emotionally constipated) and that Elizabeth could have seen more gracefully through his failings of expression.

Essentially he’s having a self-serving and incompetent mental download, she puts up her defences in return and while the resulting tension is what drives the plot its technically a waste of everyone’s time when an unfortunate horse riding accident, case of typhoid or even nasty bout of dysentery could realistically have wiped one or both of the protagonists out before they come to their senses and realise they’ve found their life partner after all.

And perhaps that’s where my fascination with the story really took off, through exploring the gritty realities of life behind the scenes of the Bennet household in Jo Baker’s novel Longbourn. A ball at Netherfield? A big laundry bill for servants Sarah and Polly. Five daughters under one roof? Piles of monthly rags to be washed (yes, more laundry). Visitors searching for the 'necessary house' regardless of rank or degree. Bodily functions explored in all their ugly glory.

If Longbourn introduces characters, lesser mortals previously unheard or unseen, PD James’ Death Comes to Pemberley expands on ones we already know with the addition of a tantalising whodunit element. We get to further explore our guilty fascination with Mr Wickham that persists despite his loathsome character (we can’t really blame Lydia can we?). We cherish the opportunity to roam the shades of Pemberley and follow Elizabeth and Darcy’s story.

The fact that you know the original story already is very much the point. The source material adds context, enriching the subsequent narratives with flavour and meaning. And then, ladies and gentlemen, we have Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of), a stage adaptation that joyfully parodies Austen's tale through the power of musical comedy and leaves the audience with a ripple effect of happy feeling and gratitude to be alive (and glad to be in the comparatively liberated twenty-first century).

Perhaps the crowning moment of the show is Mary finally snatching her moment in the spotlight on the karaoke machine. But she’s finding her voice in other ways too, in Jennifer Paynter’s The Forgotten Sister: Mary Bennet’s Pride And Prejudice which makes you think it’s perhaps Kitty who ultimately gets the raw deal. I’ll only know if I read all the literary adaptations of Pride and Prejudice on the shelves, and there are many. Pride And Prejudice And Zombies anyone? I’ll give it a whirl.

So what does all this variety tell us? That we love the 1813 novel or find it wanting and feel compelled to add more depth and alternative resolution? Oscar Wilde's view that 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness' seems unfair - each modern nod to Austen's enduringly popular work is a success in its own right simply by virtue of being published, as a pioneering female author Austen would surely have revelled in that.