Stefanie C Peters

This is the second of a two-part series. Don’t miss the first article, A history of Jane Austen sequels.

On Friday, I offered a short history of sequels to the novels of Jane Austen and novels that situate themselves in Austen’s “world”; for simplicity’s sake, let’s call them all sequels. I began down that path by wondering how this trend of sequel-writing had progressed to pairing Jane Austen with zombies, vampires, and sea monsters.

But perhaps first the question to be asked is why Austen’s novels are open to creative adaptation at all. The obvious answer is that two of them were left unfinished; and indeed, the first two sequels published, written by two of Austen’s nieces, endeavored to provide endings for Sanditon and The Watsons. However, there have been only seven (that I can find) novels responding to The Watsons and five to Sanditon. There are dozens to Pride and Prejudice.

marriage

Emma Tennant, whose Austen sequels include Pemberley and Emma in Love, says that it is because Austen always ended with marriage that the books are open to sequels. Beside the intrinsic happiness in the occasion of a marriage, a marriage promises children, and therefore a new story.

But while this theory might explain most sequels, it does not explain Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, nor does it offer any clues as to why sequel authors choose to show us Mr. Darcy’s Daughters and not Beatrice and Benedick Four Years Later, or Isabella Marries the Duke (two imaginary titles for sequels to Shakespeare plays that might prove just as entertaining, I think).

Austen’s novels are not just about marriage. To many Janeites, her novels represent an attractive system of morals, decorum, and good taste, which they believe is lost to modern society. As a writer, Austen is admired for her masterful use of irony and realism; she is often compared to Shakespeare.

shakespeare

For shock value, zombies can do nothing better than to attack a world with this sort of reputation, both social and literary. At the same time, perhaps the paranormal genre, by allying itself with Austen (doesn’t Pride and Prejudice and Zombies list the authors as Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith?) makes a statement about its own standing as literature. Or maybe not.

Shakespeare’s plays also have a rich history of inspiring sequels and novelistic commentaries. Some are created to honor the original plays; some to appropriate their literary status; some to satirize them. Maybe Austen’s supernatural sequels are the modern equivalent of the latter.

Austen’s novels are unique in being claimed by popular and high culture alike. They belong equally to the realms of book club and graduate seminar. It is perhaps both an embrace of the first and reaction against the second that makes Austen’s books so attractive to zombies.

your turn

It’s difficult and perhaps inane to formulate a theory on a topic like this. I could have missed the mark completely—what do you think?