Jane Austen’s writing has never been out of print. On top of that, legions of admirers are producing their own Austen-inspired fan fiction.
West Windsor resident Deborah Yaffe reported on Austen fandom in her 2013 book, “Among the Janeites: A Journey Through the World of Jane Austen Fandom,” and she will discuss Austen fan fiction at Labyrinth Books in Princeton on Wednesday April 13, at 6 p.m. The free event is organized in partnership with Princeton Public Library, which later in the month is hosting Curtis Sittenfeld, the latest contributor to HarperCollins’ Austen Project fan fiction series.
An avid “Janeite” since elementary school, Yaffe also blogs regularly about all things Jane Austen at her website, deborahyaffe.com. A veteran newspaper journalist by trade, Yaffe has lived in West Windsor with her family since 1997.
Her husband, Alastair Bellany, hails from Great Britain and is a Rutgers history professor specializing in early 17th century English history. She has two children, David, a freshman at Yale (and an occasional contributor to the News), and Rachel, a sophomore at North.
“Jane Austen is just a wonderful and eternally rewarding writer,” Yaffe says. “Every time you read her books you’ll find something new. She’s incredibly perceptive about human relations, psychology, and family. She’s also incredibly funny. People don’t seem to understand that she is a comic writer.”
In her book she devotes one chapter to the phenomenon of Austen fan fiction, in which writers create new works of fiction based on Austen’s characters. The works of fan fiction run the gamut, from sequels to the originals to genre mash-ups that incorporate zombies into the plot.
The Austen Project is a series of six fan fiction novels by well known authors, and Sittenfeld’s book, “Eligible” will be a modern adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice.”
Yaffe looks forward to the new book, the fourth in the series, though she says the first three Austen Project books were pretty bad.
“I’ve read some excellent fan fiction, and some so terrible that you cannot believe,” Yaffe said, adding that fan fiction is a very disrespected genre, which may be unfair given the amount of bad fiction that is also published.
Most of Yaffe’s 2013 book on Austen fandom focuses on people with the most intense obsessiveness or wackiest interpretations. It is also part memoir about her own longtime admiration. She estimates she has read each of Austen’s six books at least four times. One of her favorite passages is in “Pride and Prejudice,” when Mr. Darcy’s proposal is initially rejected by Elizabeth Bennet.
“Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth in a very insulting way, as if he’s doing her a big favor, and she tells him in no uncertain terms that she won’t marry someone who treats her so disrespectfully,” Yaffe says.
As for film adaptations of Austen’s work, Yaffe recommends productions from the mid-1990s. There is Ang Lee’s “Sense and Sensibility” as well as the film “Clueless,” loosely based on Austen’s “Emma.” Of course, there is also the 1995 BBC miniseries of “Pride and Prejudice,” Deborah Yaffe on Jane Austen Fan Fiction, Labyrinth Books, 122 Nassau Street, Princeton. Free. 6 p.m. 609-497-1600 or www.labyrinthbooks.com.
