Pride and Prejudice sparked a wider interest in the works of Jane Austen. To tie in to its release, at least five popular-priced editions of the book were printed, including a 25 cent paperback from Pocket Books. By 1948, the novel was so popular, it had gone into 21 printings.

This was not the first filming of Pride and Prejudice. In 1938 it was adapted for the fledgling television medium in England, but considering how few people had access to TV at the time, it was not likely that many people saw it.

The story has been filmed numerous times: a truncated version for American TV in 1949; numerous British television versions, either as single shows or a mini-series, that includes one in 1952 (with Peter Cushing as Mr. Darcy), 1958, 1967, 1980 and the most acclaimed version, with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle in the leads, in 1995; on Italian TV in 1957 (with the young Virna Lisi as Elizabeth) and Spanish TV in 1966. It also inspired a modern-day U.S. independent film interpretation in 2003, a "Bollywood" version of the story in 2004 (called Bride and Prejudice), and a big budget feature film in 2005 with Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen, and Dame Judi Dench as Lady Catherine.

Ever since the MGM version of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's other novels have been popular subjects for film and television, including numerous adaptations of Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and Sense and Sensibility. A 1995 film of the latter, directed by Ang Lee, won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar® for Emma Thompson, who also starred in the film.

Several years later, MGM considered doing a musical version, and Sally Benson and Sidney Sheldon took stabs at putting together a script, but no film came about from these efforts. A stage musical entitled First Impressions (Austen's original pre-publication title for her novel) was produced unsuccessfully on Broadway in 1959 with Polly Bergen as Elizabeth, Farley Granger as Darcy and Hermione Gingold as Mrs. Bennet, a role that was expanded from its secondary status in the book to accommodate Gingold, then a major Broadway star. It was based on the same dramatization by Helen Jerome that was used to develop the script for the 1940 film.

The film Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), and the 1996 novel by Helen Fielding on which it is based, deliberately reference elements of Pride and Prejudice. Fielding has stated in interviews that her book was based on Austen's story and the 1995 BBC adaptation. In fact, Colin Firth, who played Darcy in that series, plays a character named Mark Darcy in the Bridget Jones movie, a man whose attitudes and intentions are misunderstood by Bridget until she lets go of her preconceptions, learns his true nature, and recognizes him as the man she really loves. Furthermore, the film's screenplay was co-written by Andrew Davies, who wrote the BBC adaptation of Austen's novel.

by Rob Nixon