The Story of the Costume Drama

Affairs of the Heart

The "bodice rippers" of the 1990s helped costume dramas shed their staid reputation as quickly as characters doffed their period garb. Colin Firth's wet-shirt scene in Pride and Prejudice and the romps of Moll Flanders epitomized a slew of saucy literary adaptations. Earlier dramas like Edward the King exposed royal infidelities.