Amanda, a young woman living in modern London, enters the plot of the novel through a portal in her bathroom, to join the Bennet family and affect events, generally disastrously.

[1] Amanda Price, a keen Jane Austen fan from present-day Hammersmith, who has just rejected an unromantic marriage proposal from her boozy boyfriend, discovers Elizabeth Bennet, a character from Pride and Prejudice, standing in a nightgown in her bathroom.

She explains to her mother that Jane Austen's novel has shown her that she can set higher standards for a husband for herself and has taught her to believe in true love.

Amanda steps through the secret doorway in the wall that Elizabeth has shown her, and finds herself at Longbourn, the home of the Bennet family in Hertfordshire, near the beginning of the novel.

While nursing a sick Jane with the then-unknown drug paracetamol at Netherfield Park, Amanda finally puts a stop to Bingley's advances to her.

As the Bennet ladies return to Longbourn, their carriage breaks down, but an army officer, Wickham, plays gallant rescuer.

A mischievous Wickham begins to discredit Amanda, spreading rumours that her vast income comes from her deceased father, a fishmonger.

Jane, believing that Bingley no longer loves her, accepts her mother's advice and unhappily marries Mr Collins.

He buys her a dress, shows her how to use a fan to hide her true emotions, and invents fictional French nobles for her to name-drop.

Lady Catherine, not wanting to appear ignorant and unconnected, goes along with the ploy, pretending to know the relations, and allows Amanda to dine with them.

Mr Bennet claims that if she finds a happy marriage at Rosings, he will walk the drawing room naked.

Lady Catherine mentions that she wishes the rest of the Bennet girls to marry Mr Collins's brothers, who are less "favoured" than himself.

Despite their disagreements over dinner, Darcy begins to soften towards Amanda when she returns a gold watch that a sad and drunken Bingley wagers and loses at cards.

At a shooting party, Jane tearfully pleads with the sinking Bingley to fulfil his moral duty to marry and be happy for them both.

She tells a weeping Mrs Bennet that she will marry Darcy in order to buy Longbourn for them, freeing them from the influence of Mr Collins.

He assumes that she is its author and expresses his shock that she has exposed private matters, not even concealing the real names of the characters.

Darcy announces his expected engagement to Caroline, and Mrs Bennet receives a note telling of Lydia's elopement with, not Wickham, but Bingley.

Amanda travels with Mr and Mrs Bennet in pursuit of Lydia and Bingley, and, with help from Wickham, they find them hiding at an inn in then-rural Hammersmith.

Jane and Bingley plan to marry and leave for America, and Amanda persuades Elizabeth to try to learn to love Darcy.

Filming took place at locations including Bramham Park, parts of York, and Leeds City Markets.

Thirty-one-year-old actor Elliot Cowan (Mr Darcy) got the part when he was playing Henry V. Because, in his words, the show "has a similar sort of iconography within the theatre canon", he was not worried.

Alex Kingston (Mrs Bennet) found a sadness in her character and played her as "a woman unhappy in her marital situation.

[11] While the show could not match the slot average for the year of 3.8m (16.1%), it gave a significant boost to the commercial network's upmarket profile.

Lost in Austen was the subject of various blogs, including a series by Sarah Dempster writing online in The Guardian.

[19] James Walton of The Daily Telegraph noted that "it does triumphantly achieve its main aim of being enormously good-natured fun.

[21] Hermione Eyre in The Independent on Sunday wrote "This a sweet and foamy guilty pleasure, the advocaat on the TV cocktail list.

[23] Under the headline "creative revival is not enough to reverse ITV's historic low", Janine Gibson wrote in The Guardian that the show is "flawed, but ambitious; a big ask, but answered with verve; polarising and a bit controversial.

[24] Reviewing episode three, Tim Teeman in The Times wrote "it was fun to have Amanda ask Mr Darcy to emerge from the water so that she could indulge a fantasy she had only read on the page".

[25] Reviewing the final episode, Tim Teeman in The Times continued his praise, giving the show five stars.

[26] Readers of the Media Guardian voted Lost in Austen their 16th favourite TV show of 2008, the first time an ITV drama has made the poll.