Jane Austen fan fiction has sparked a worldwide interest and the amount of modern Austen adaptations is growing. An increasing number of sequels to the writer’s most popular works, including Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, Emma and Persuasion have been published in the recent years to a growing audience.
Much of JA fanfic is based on the highly popular Pride and Prejudice, although Sense and Sensibility, and Emma, have both created several follow-ups, as has Persuasion. In many sequels the writers explore possible events after the wedding of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. Books such as “Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife” and “Darcy & Elizabeth: Nights and Days at Pemberley” by Linda Berdoll imagine events and storylines after the original story’s ending. Some books, however, update the stories and place them in a modern setting.
In Emma Tennant’s “An Unequal Marriage” the son of Darcy gets married to a barmaid, and in Melissa Nathan’s “Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field” the main character is a magazine journalist who ends up with the role of Elizabeth in a play with disastrous results. While Regency ear novels are the most popular, the modern adaptations and sequels are also a lot of fun to read, illustrating that Jane Austen’s classic is just that a classic. Her themes are just as pertinent in today’s modern world as they were 200 years ago.
Many of the sequels and spin offs have managed to pick up the story at where Jane Austen left it in her books, and have created some interesting insights into the characters’ lives. Some writers also explore and develop characters that received less attention originally. These include Julia Barrett, who in her “Presumption: An Entertainment” builds the main story around Darcy’s sister Georgiana. Some of the modern spin-offs have received criticism from fans of Austen but many have become very popular among Austen fans and other readers, and have kept the world of Austen alive and well into the 21st century.
Ellie James is a lover of all things Jane Austen. Her favorite books are those Jane Austen sequels which center on the Regency period and find Darcy and Elizabeth in all sorts of interesting new scenarios. That said, any JA sequel is good too!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ellie_James
Post from: FanFic
Jane Austen Fan Fiction Sparks Interest Around the World
