What do Shakespeare and Jane Austen have in common?

Their works have spawned countless remakes and retellings. Stately manor houses have been transformed into zombies hideouts. Characters have been transported to New York tenements. Star Trek’s Klingons recite Hamlet’s soliloquies.

And since Shakespeare and Austen’s works are in the public domain, all of these remakes are legal.

Books, settings, characters, and stories in the public domain are a rich source of material for writers, as they should be. When a classic tale is retold, writers explor...