Helen Fielding has the distinction among younger British novelists of having written an enormously popular book that has changed the English language and aroused an intense controversy over the needs and desires of modern women and the fate of feminism. It is remarkable that a comic novel written solely with the intention of amusing readers should have such a large impact. Bridget Jones's Diary (1996) was a best-seller in the United Kingdom, has been translated into many languages, and was published to acclaim in the United States as well. The 1999 sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, moved directly to the top of best-seller lists in Britain. While she had neither lofty ambitions nor deconstructionist intentions, Fielding patterned the plots of her two Bridget Jones novels on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Persuasion (1817), thus contributing to the modern trend-both among feminist authors such as Emma Tennant and Fay...