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“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813), Penguin Classics 1996.

When I was a child I didn’t read many books – in fact, the very act of reading seemed thoroughly abhorrent to me. If it didn’t have pictures and didn’t capture my imagination within seconds, then any literary form was inevitably tossed aside. In 2005, however, that mindset was irrevocably reversed when a screen adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice graced our screens for the first time.

As a young student thoroughly invested in history, and with a need to break away from my own reality, the dazzling world of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudiceimmediately captured my imagination. Having never read the text, however, this complex, comedic love story was somewhat difficult for my young mind to comprehend. Thoroughly enthralled in a way that I had never been before, the novel awakened me to the world of Jane Austen’s regency, a world of courtly manners, etiquette, class and society. To a place where one’s birth and material assets mattered more in a marriage than the concept of love and to a female character who, way ahead of her time, defied the expectations of her class in her determination to marry for nothing but love. It was a novel that became a timeless classic in the literary imagination, a novel that introduced me to the world of online fanfiction.

The world of Jane Austen fanfiction is well established in the online communities, full of stories imagining the continuation of the novel and the what-ifs that never eventuated. What if Elizabeth had been forced to accept Darcy’s first proposal? What if Lady Catherine never interfered? What if Elizabeth had never overheard Mr. Darcy at the Assembly? Or what if he apologized? Just think, what would the story have been like if Jane died from her illness or Elizabeth ended up with Mr. Bingley instead?

These are questions that the readers and writers of Jane Austen fanfiction have been exploring for years and in many senses the level of commitment to this fandom makes it an entirely creditable and elitist form of fanfiction to the ordinary reader. Underpinning this notion, however, is an age old critique – that fanfiction is, at its core, “simply the practice of writing…based on other people’s work” (Schaffner, 2009: 614). Those who reject fanfiction as such, generally tend to fall into the trap of believing it to be outright plagiarism and, without a doubt, there are some writers who could be rightly accused of this. For the most part, however, for those who understand the value of fanfiction, it is seen as a mode of expression neither intended to infringe copyright or produce profit. If you were to look at most contemporary fanfictions, you would see a disclaimer printed at the top of the work, citing the original owner of the foundational content and stating that only the adaption (not the characters, images, quotes or settings) belong to the writer.

This is an interesting question for Pride and Prejudice fanfiction because it is so prolific on the internet – the sheer mass of information available sometimes makes it difficult for even the seasoned reader to find the light at the end of a very long tunnel. One could easily assume, then, that Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Amanda Grange’s Mr. Darcy’s Diary, Sharon Lathan’s The Darcy Saga (all published versions of Jane Austen fanfiction) or the multitude of published works on fanfiction communities could also be classified as plagiarized work. Here’s the hitch – when Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813 there was no such thing as copyright, so although based on the work they are far more accepted than something based on Harry Potter ever would be (especially since trying to publish such a work would probably send the writer to court).

To the prolific reader of fanfiction, however, most works are accepted not as plagiarism but as works of expression –they don’t retell the same story, the re-imagine it. They engage a worldwide community and they inspire the next reader to write. Maybe that should be thought about next time plagiarism comes to mind.

References:

All images cited from GoogleImages

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. London: Penguin Classics, 1996.

Schaffner, Becca. “In Defense of Fanfiction.” The Horn Book Magazine, Nov/Dec 2009: 613-618.