I recently posted a Middlemarch by George Eliot fan fiction on the free site Archive of Our Own (AO3). I was shocked to find myself making relationship tags. I was further blown away to find out that there are only 12 Middlemarch fan fictions on AO3 total. Checking other authors, even the famous Jane Eyre by Chartlotte Bronte only has 379 works on AO3. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens has 111. All of Shakespeare? 5667.
Jane Austen’s least known work, Lady Susan, has 29. Northanger Abbey has 422, Mansfield Park 380, Sense & Sensibility 544, Emma 574, Persuasion 790, and Pride & Prejudice? 4,218! These totals are not even counting the published Jane Austen fan fiction and the numerous other sites, such as Derbyshire Writer’s Guild (dwiggie.com) and A Happy Assembly (AHA) which are entirely devoted to Jane Austen fan fiction.
Note: Jane Austen cannot rival two of the biggest fan fiction fandoms that I think are the most similar to her works: Lord of the Rings & Sherlock Holmes. If I had to guess why these are so popular, I’d say magnificent world-building for JRR Tolkien which gives writers a ton of ground to explore and the fact that mainstream Sherlock Holmes adaptations lean hard into AU fan fiction, encouraging authors to go further
I don’t write fan fiction for everything I read or watch, that would be impossible for one, but also, I don’t often feel inspired to write fan fiction. I need to either really love and want more of a story or be so distraught at the ending that I fix the story. My very earliest fan fictions were fix-it fics of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet and George Orwell’s 1984. I’ve written one fan fiction each for George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Anne Bronte, and Oscar Wilde based on one of their works. I’ve written over fifty for Jane Austen, with more incomplete, and for each of her wonderful novels. I even started writing a completion of one of her incomplete works Leslie Castle. I often write crossovers as well because I feel like her works blend into their own universe (wouldn’t Sir Walter and Lady Catherine meeting be funny?)
What is it about Austen that causes not only readers to love her, but writers to want to extend her works? It cannot just be good adaptations, though these have certainly helped. Jane Eyre has a ton of adaptations, for example. It can’t just be that her works are public domain or romances.
My guess is this: Jane Austen writes such realistic and vibrant characters that writers can’t help wanting to play with the dollhouse. Her main characters are so varied and interesting. She writes all personalities, introverts and extroverts, confident and shy, bookish and naive, wise and silly. Even background characters have motivations and goals, they feel real. Her villains are so well written you can take their perspective.
And yet, is this so unique? I feel the same way about tons of other authors. What is Austen’s secret that has inspired so many?
Whatever it is, I find it beautiful. I hope that Austen always continues to move people to creation. I am glad that Austen has a living and expanding fan fiction community and I hope it continues for another 200 years.
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