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The secret blood-sucking world of Mr Darcy

Zombies, vampires and monsters are taking over Jane Austen's classic novels

By Jonathan Brown

'Mash-up' literature combines literary classics with horror themes - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has sold over 700,000 copies and is to be made into a film

'Mash-up' literature combines literary classics with horror themes - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has sold over 700,000 copies and is to be made into a film

With their smouldering heroes, beautiful heroines and exquisite observations of the social mores of the Regency era, all encapsulated in some of the finest dialogue ever created in the English language, Jane Austen's novels might appear to have everything. Everything that is except zombies, vampires and mutant sea monsters.

The new trend for adding a touch of blood and gore to the genteel world inhabited by the likes of Elizabeth Bennett and the Dashwood sisters is set to reach grisly new heights next month with the publication of a series of books which will indulge the public's apparently insatiable thirst for horror "mash-up" literature.

First out will be Mr Darcy, Vampyre, by Cheshire-based writer Amanda Grange, which explores the blood-sucking private world of the celebrated romantic hero. Two weeks later, the US-based creators of the best-selling publishing phenomenon Pride and Prejudice and Zombies are due to unleash their follow-up, which brings a bit of aquatic horror to Austen's debut with Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Later in the autumn a third book, Jane Bites Back, places the author herself at the centre of the crucifix-dodging action.

"When I sat down to do the sequel I thought, I don't just want to do the same book again," said Quirk Books' editorial director Jason Rekulak, who pioneered the format with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies after meeting dozens of Austen fans at a Californian sci-fi convention. It has since sold more than 700,000 copies and is due to be made into a film. A lifelong fan of the works of Jules Verne, Mr Rekulak thought it would be fun to enliven the follow-up with some rampaging giant squid and man-eating octopuses. To overcome the problem that little of the original action was based around water, he and author Ben Winters transferred the main characters to a secret island. "I just thought it was a funny idea. There were concerns from our sales department who thought Jane Austen fans wouldn't like the mayhem while zombie fans wouldn't get on with the original, but so far we have managed to get both audiences," he said. While there have been some objections from Austen fans, there is little they can do because her books are no longer under copyright and so are open to wholesale reinterpretation.

The idea to turn Mr Darcy into a bloodsucker occurred to Ms Grange whilst she was watching the cult TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With six Austen-related novels under her belt, she saw the opportunity to mix romance with a "brooding sense of horror" that already runs through the novels completed by the author in her lifetime. "When Austen was writing it was a boom time for the gothic. Underneath this rather nice Regency world you have the simmering horror of the Napoleonic war. Austen had brothers in the forces so she was aware of what was going on out there. England was living in fear of invasion. We have horror lurking just under the surface," she said.

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Comments

We have Horror Lurking Under the surface
[info]fastguyeddie wrote:
Thursday, 13 August 2009 at 08:06 am (UTC)
Indeed we do Ms Grange; knocking out tripe like this being a new form I've discovered this morning.
A VERY SICK SOCIETY
[info]soaring_eagle1 wrote:
Thursday, 13 August 2009 at 09:08 am (UTC)
How dare these people turn beautiful writing into a horror story!

I think most of the people who watch disgusting horror films need to see a psychiatrist.

It is just another string to this very sick society we live in, people are addicted to anything that shows people being hurt, acting like a D*** Head and enjoy endless meaningless soaps.

If you want to make a really great horror film combine, Coronation Street Eastenders, Holly Oaks Neighbours,Home and Away, big brother and all the other reality shows they are already pretty terrible so it won't detract at all.

Get a life and leave truly beautiful literature alone.
Re: A VERY SICK SOCIETY
[info]tap_code wrote:
Thursday, 13 August 2009 at 09:57 am (UTC)
Are Shakespeare,Mary Shelly and Bram Stoker part of are sick Society?or maybe they just need psychotherapy.
Re: A VERY SICK SOCIETY
[info]jim_jimmeney wrote:
Thursday, 13 August 2009 at 11:33 am (UTC)
How dare they? By any chance did you listen to the Ross/Brand recording just so you could be offended by it?
Yawn
[info]kuma2000 wrote:
Thursday, 13 August 2009 at 10:25 am (UTC)
Done before much more subtly by Val Lewton who produced a bunch of b-movies back in the 1940s - I Walked With A Zombie probably being the best one which took its plot from Jan Eyre.

Judging by the covers these look pretty dire and a place where you would expect to find the English language being slaughtered considerably more brutally than the heroine.
Re: Yawn
[info]jim_jimmeney wrote:
Thursday, 13 August 2009 at 11:24 am (UTC)
Are you literally judging a book by its cover?
Re: Yawn
[info]kuma2000 wrote:
Thursday, 13 August 2009 at 12:56 pm (UTC)
Guilty m'lud!
Ms Grange and the gothic novel
[info]kolya12 wrote:
Thursday, 13 August 2009 at 12:14 pm (UTC)
Sorry, old thing, Jane Austen herself beat you to it when it comes to lampooning the 19 centruy gothic novel. Read Northanger Abbey and weep.
judge a book by its cover?
[info]goatjuggler wrote:
Thursday, 13 August 2009 at 12:32 pm (UTC)
seems only fair and reasonable, given the effort they've gone to to announce the book's tone and intent on it. Sadly I suspect the best joke in the book's on it as well.
P&P&Z is a good thing
[info]xavkoenig wrote:
Thursday, 13 August 2009 at 01:25 pm (UTC)
How many people commenting on this article have actually read any of these new editions? I have read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and I happen to think it is an extremely good thing. For one, although the added text is quite funny in itself, the best, most laugh-out-loud lines are still Jane Austen's own words, the original, unaltered text of which makes up 80-90% of the book anyway. And secondly, these books are gaining readership across a sizeable teenage audience, including boys - a very hard group to crack. And P&P&Z is so close to the original it is just a small step to actually read the original. This can only make it easier for new readers to find and read Jane Austen's excellent works as I am sure some will. Half the battle is getting kids to realise that there is indeed something worthwhile and something to appreciate about this fantastic literature.
Horror
[info]archie1954 wrote:
Thursday, 13 August 2009 at 04:28 pm (UTC)
You don't have to rewrite fine English prose into a horror fantasy, just watch the daily news. There's plenty of horror to satisfy even the most rabid fan of such wickedness every day right at your fingertips.
A good thing
[info]saintockwell wrote:
Thursday, 13 August 2009 at 05:16 pm (UTC)
Having just finished reading P&P&Z, I'd have to agree with xavkoenig - if it gets the youth market into proper literature then the end justifies the means. That said, the quality of the added writing is pretty average - all the best, and indeed funniest, lines are Austen's own. You come away with the feeling that Seth Graeme-Smith hasn't really taken the time to understand what the book is really about, and has just added entirely incongruous lines without weaving them into either the story or the underlying culture of the book.

Far cleverer is the Harry Enfield Terminator/Brideshead Revisited mash-up which weaves together the two genres more effectively: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKCAGb6Pzcg

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