The ocean of Jane Austen’s fan fiction is wide and never-ending.
Fan fiction isn’t easy, and following in the footsteps of a great genius can be catastrophic. Just look at two examples of excellent female writers who are favorites of mine. Both tried to take on the eternal characters of Pride and Prejudice and use them, but in my opinion, both failed spectacularly: P.D. James’s utterly boring Death Comes to Pemberley and Colleen McCullough’s horrendous The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet.
Of course, there are opposite examples—original and well-written works like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Graham-Smith and Curtis Sittenfeld’s truly delightful Eligible.Â
The book I’m reviewing today is one of the more successful endeavors:
Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen (published in 2003), a collection of very short takes on different parts of Austen’s six published novels.
The book’s hilarious beginning, Jane at Netherfield, sets the right tone. It captures the original spirit of the relationship between Jane Bennet and Mr. Bingley’s sisters while adding the promiscuity promised by the title.
Another cute little story—also a take on Pride and Prejudice—is my favorite. Charlotte receives a present from Lady Catherine containing an old gown and a whip. Charlotte soon puts it to good use on Mr. Collins.
A great take on Emma is the episode (told here for the first time, of course) of Frank Churchill visiting a stiff, rigid Mr. Knightley. Churchill is his own charming self, talking endlessly of Emma, Jane Fairfax, and the billiard stick in Mr. Knightley’s hands. The latter grows even more rigid, and it’s both funny and totally hot.
In Mansfield Park, the staging of the play and the play they chose already brimmed with sexual innuendos and naughty scenes. Here, it gets an even more outrageous treatment. When Tom and Edmund try to settle on a suitable play, they go through a hilarious list of rowdy titles (for example, Edmund asks for a play with no women in it, and Tom suggests The Three Lonesome Deck-hands, or A Romance of the West Indies). When the play The Curious Cousins is finally chosen, we are treated to a delightful scene where a reluctant Fanny is made to wear a French maid outfit and engage in some very real playacting with Edmund and Miss Crawford.
I found that the better stories dealt with the supporting characters. For instance, the scene describing what Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy were up to while waiting for her slow-walking aunt and uncle is not particularly great. However, the little story of Henry and Mary Crawford’s fascination with each other is much better.
All in all, Pride and Promiscuity is a delightful work that doesn’t shame the original but instead makes one wish to re-read it.