REMAKES of classic films have become a staple of modern cinema.

From The Omen to the Poseidon Adventure, Hollywood has latched on to a moneyspinning formula which allows it to regurgitate an old plot with snappier special effects and lure in punters who probably never even saw the original in the first place.

But the idea of applying the "remake" technique to novels is an altogether newer idea.

This week sees the publication of a contempory reworking of Jane Austen's classic work Emma penned by the best-selling Edinburgh novelist, Alexander McCall Smith.

In his version, the matchmaking heroine who thinks she knows everything is "fresh from university … and ready to embark on adult life with a splash". All the familiar elements are there - her protegee, Harriet Smith; the put-upon father; the whirlwind of dinner parties and nightlife; and, of course, the "inscrutable" love interest George Knightly, who is the "one person who plays with Emma's indestructible confidence".

Like Shakespeare, Austen's classics are the basis of hundreds of interpretations and twists. The character of Emma was famously reworked for the silver screen in the 1990s as the mobile phone-wielding, Porsche-driving Beverly Hills teenager, Cher, in Clueless, played by Alicia Silverstone.

Pride and Prejudice, meanwhile, was reinvented as a Bollywood-style romcom set in India, with Mr Darcy becoming a wealthy American hotelier and Elizabeth Bennet recast as Lalita, a fiercely independent young woman helping her father run the family business.

McCall Smith's work is the third instalment of a six-book series of Austen rewrites. It comes hot on the heels of Joanna Trollope's version of Sense and Sensibility, published last year, and Scottish crime writer Val McDermid's interpretation of Northanger Abbey which hit bookshops in April.

The project speaks volumes for the public's seemingly insatiable appetite for Austen.

"What she has to say strikes a chord with today's readers in spite of those two centuries. Jane Austen is still true," said McCall Smith.

Writing last week about the experience of reworking the classic, the author best-known for his Botswana-set detective novels said it was like "being given a large box of chocolates and told that it was my duty to eat them".

He added that Austen is still relevant today because her lessons on money and love remain equally important 200 years on. "We have recently been reminded in this country that money corrupts and leads to great and appalling selfishness," said McCall Smith.

"Investment bankers and their bonuses are proof of all that.

"Jane Austen would never say that money is the measure of all things, but she would not discount the extent to which having enough money - what she would call a modest competence - helps one avoid hardship and indignity.

"If you don't have money, then you often have to accept second best, as Fanny does in Mansfield Park.

"This, of course, means that when you come to choose a partner, it is an advantage if that partner is at least solvent.

"This is something we do not like to admit. We prefer to think that love is the sole measure of the value of a relationship.

"Love obviously counts, but the truth of the matter is that if a husband or wife can help pay the mortgage, life is going to be better all round.

"Jane Austen knew that, as did Mrs Bennet. But the greatest of all the lessons she teaches us is this: everybody wants to find somebody to love and, if possible, to marry."

The focus on romance and relationships at the heart of Austen's novels has also led to another new Jane-inspired publication: a dating guide in her name, entitled The Jane Austen Rules.

Its author, Newcastle University academic Dr Sinead Murphy, said Austen's novels teach us that "the pursuit of romance cannot just be compatible with, but can actually contribute to, a fully realised adult womanhood".

Among the Austen-inspired advice meted out to young women is: "Be quite independent"; "Don't just sit there, do something"; and "Have great expectations".

And if men want to understand how women think, there is no better place to find out than thumbing through the pages of this spinster's novels, Murphy adds.

She said contemporary dating guides were misguided because they portrayed the pursuit of love and marriage as a guilty secret that women feel ashamed to own up to.

"It's like a naughty, giggly secret, which seems to me to put it already on the wrong footing," said Murphy.

"Whereas in Jane Austen's time, the project of meeting and marrying a man was one that was granted total respect and dignity and was seen as very much compatible with independent-minded, opinionated women.

"In these modern dating guides men are cast in the most awful roles as if they're creatures to be ensnared, like rodents, so again that leaves the playing field very skewed against women's dignity and men's sense of responsibility.

"And I think from a male persepctive, Jane Austen offers a route out of this horrifying kind of teenage personae that is projected onto them by these dating guides."

Murphy also believes that Austen's ­characters could teach women today how to be better feminists.

"The women that she portrays in her novels are very much the stars of the show. They're full of opinions, full of life, full of principles, and for me that is quite a surprising thing to encounter now.

"If you actually look at these female characters, they put a lot of the women that I meet today in the shade.

"I'm always struck in mixed company, certainly in the UK, that women tend for the most part to be quite mild and silent and they leave the conduct of the conversation and so on to men. Jane Austen offers us something much more.

"So I don't just think she's still relevant, but I actually think we need to return to this vision she had of women operating in society."

Not everyone agrees, however.

Brianne Moore, Austen fan and web editor for the Scottish Book Trust, said the female characters' success or failure in life is dictated by how well they comply with the rules laid down by men.

"She did create some very spirited and strong female characters who many argue made their own decisions in life, rather than adhering simply to what society expected of them - after all, didn't Lizzy Bennet turn down Mr Collins?" said Moore.

"But the thing is, those characters inevitably wound up fitting into exactly the mould their patriarchal society expected them to: they all married wealthy men of position, and took their places as good wives.

"Women in Austen's stories who are particularly outspoken or don't behave in the way proper young ladies are meant to - polite and decorous, not too flirtatious, not too wildly imaginative - are frequently punished."

Moore added: "In Austen, whether or not you get your wedding in the end - the expected, conventional ending for a young woman - is highly based on how well-behaved you are, in the eyes of a highly patriarchal society, which doesn't read as terribly feminist to me."

For other fans, however, it is the "feelgood factor" of Austen's novels which have made them so enduringly popular.

Maureen Kelly, chairman of the Scottish Branch of the Jane Austen Society, said: "They're entertaining, romantic and glamorous. There's no violence, no bad language. Gratuitous swearing is boring and breaks up the flow of the story.

"Like so many of the great novelists, there's different dimensions to her books. That's what's excellent. Yes, you could say that they're good stories and chick-lit and all that, but there's so much more.

"Her writing is relevant today, we recognise her characters - we've all seen Mr Collins, Miss Bates and all that.

"And none of her characters are perfect, she doesn't do perfect characters. They're all flawed to a greater or lesser extent - even her heroes and heroines, and that was pretty new in her day.

"And she uses wit so effectively to show up their faults and foibles. But she's never cruel to her good characters, she just pokes fun at them."

Like many fans, Kelly is eagerly anticipating the latest take on Emma, which goes on sale on Thursday.

"I love the old editions and I don't think they're going to go out of fashion or out of love, but I think it's good to get a different view," said Murphy.

"It's good that they've chosen highly reputable writers for it, and anything that takes people into Jane Austen herself must be good."