The Digital Afterlives of Jane Austen: Janeites at the Keyboard

Jane Austen's novels are constantly re-imagined on page and screen, in updated and transplanted re-tellings, adaptations, spin off publications, and fan fiction. The Digital Afterlives of Jane Austen explores the ever-expanding realm of Austen fandom on the Internet, tracking the many re-workings of this Regency writer's novels on today's electronic writing platforms and websites. Situating online Austen fandom within developing as well as continuing modes of literacy and publishing, this book provides an insight into a dynamic, diverse and sometimes surprising fan culture. By reading print and digital literary cultures in relation to each other, and as contiguous rather than competing, it challenges static notions of literature and literary practice, and offers new ways of seeing and understanding Austen fandom and the activities of Janeites at the keyboard.

This is the first scholarly study to explore the ever-expanding world of online Austen fandom and fan fiction writing. Using case studies from the Internet writing community and publisher, Wattpad, as well as dedicated fan websites, it illuminates the literary processes and products that have given Austen multiple afterlives in the digital arena.

Kylie Mirmohamadi is a Research Associate in English and History at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. She has published widely in Australian history, garden history, literary studies and cultural studies. Her most recent books, co-authored with Susan K. Martin, are Colonial Dickens: What Australians Made of the World's Favourite Writer (2012) and Sensational Melbourne: Reading, Sensation Fiction and Lady Audley's Secret in the Victorian Metropolis (2011).

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Janeites at the Keyboard
1. Jane Austen's Adventures in Wattpadland
2. Reading (Austen) on Wattpad
3. 'Thanks for Fanning': Online Austen Fan Fiction
4. 'Canon can only get you so far': Janeites Read and Write 'The Bennet Brother'
5. (No) Conclusion
Bibliography
Index