Austentatious: The Evolving World of Jane Austen Fans

Luetkenhaus and Weinstein, librarians at, respectively, Oklahoma State University and Brandeis, devote this scholarly yet playful study to ongoing endeavors to broaden the world of Jane Austen “from petticoats to hashtags.” They reveal that her enthusiastic fans, known as “Janeites,” have long sought to explore and expand on her relatively slight canon of six completed novels. Janeites began making “pilgrimages to various Austen-related sites as early as the 1850s,” while 1914 saw the publication of the first Austen fanfiction. The Internet has allowed easier communication between Austen fans, but has also increased tensions between academics and amateurs; as self-described “aca-fans,” Luetkenhaus and Weinstein attempt to bridge this divide by defining fandom as inclusive of everyone driven by enthusiasm to engage with Austen’s work. As such, fanfiction can include amateur efforts posted at such sites as Archive of Our Own and professionally published books such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Thematically, fans have expanded Austen’s repertoire to feminism (in the YouTube adaptation, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries) and to sex, of both the straight and LGBTQ varieties. In showing the range and inventiveness of modern extensions of Austen’s timeless social commentaries, Luetkenhaus and Weinstein will delight old and new Austen fans. (June)