Julian Fellowes, Oscar-winning savant of the British costume drama, loves to spin tales of silken-frocked young women chafing against the rigidity of their respective eras.
With Downton Abbey, he conjured three aristocratic but ambitious sisters coming of age during the post-Edwardian upheaval. With 2009's The Young Victoria, he imagined the early years of a queen learning to rule in her own right.
With Vanity Fair (2004), Doctor Thorne (2016) and The Chaperone (2018), he adapted historical novels that examine women across generations grappling with gendered expectations of social propriety.
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