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Fan Phenomena: Jane Austen
Nearly two hundred years after her death, Jane Austen is one of the most widely read and beloved English novelists of any era. Writing and publishing anonymously during her lifetime, the woman responsible for some of the most enduring characters (and couples) of modern romantic literature—including Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley—was credited only as “A Lady” on the title pages of her novels.
It was not until her nephew published a memoir of his “dear Aunt Jane” more than five decades after her death that she became widely known. From then on, her fame only grew, and fans and devotees, so-called Janeites, soon obsessed over and idolized her. Austen soon found an appreciative audience not only of readers but also of academics, whose scholarship legitimated and secured her place in the canon of Western literature. Today, Austen’s work is still assigned in courses, obsessed over by readers young and old, parodied and parroted, and adapted for films.
Were she alive today, Austen might not recognize some of the work her novels have inspired, such as a retelling of Sense and Sensibility featuring sea monsters, Internet fan fiction, or a twelve-foot statue of a wet-shirted Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy depicting a scene that doesn’t even appear in her novel. But like any great art that endures and excites long after it is made, Austen’s novels are inextricable from the culture they have created. Essential reading for Austen’s legions of admirers, Fan Jane Austen collects essays from writers and critics that consider the culture surrounding Austen’s novels.
It was not until her nephew published a memoir of his “dear Aunt Jane” more than five decades after her death that she became widely known. From then on, her fame only grew, and fans and devotees, so-called Janeites, soon obsessed over and idolized her. Austen soon found an appreciative audience not only of readers but also of academics, whose scholarship legitimated and secured her place in the canon of Western literature. Today, Austen’s work is still assigned in courses, obsessed over by readers young and old, parodied and parroted, and adapted for films.
Were she alive today, Austen might not recognize some of the work her novels have inspired, such as a retelling of Sense and Sensibility featuring sea monsters, Internet fan fiction, or a twelve-foot statue of a wet-shirted Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy depicting a scene that doesn’t even appear in her novel. But like any great art that endures and excites long after it is made, Austen’s novels are inextricable from the culture they have created. Essential reading for Austen’s legions of admirers, Fan Jane Austen collects essays from writers and critics that consider the culture surrounding Austen’s novels.
156 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2015
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June 30, 2015
A Celebration of Jane Austen Fan Culture
SERIES OVERVIEW:
The Fan Phenomena series by Intellect Books is a collection of books that celebrates the many iconic and popular fandoms in our culture today. To date there are fourteen books published in the Fan Phenomena series with two more expected to be published later this year. Some subjects in this series include: Star Wars, The Hunger Games, Audrey Hepburn, Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Who, and of course, Jane Austen! Each book in this series highlights different facets of each fandom and explores how fans celebrate, appreciate, and share their love for these specific subjects, shows/films, or people.
BOOK OVERVIEW:
Fan Phenomena: Jane Austen is a collection of eleven essays and four interviews. Each essay is contributed by various literary scholars, writers, and academics and focuses on a different area of of the Jane Austen fandom. Included in this elegant collection is over 70 color images representing book covers, memorabilia, media screenshots, and Janeites attending various Jane Austen events. The essays range from eight to thirteen pages in length and include works cited and end notes.
MY ASSESSMENT:
A book just devoted to Jane Austen culture and fandom?!? Sounds amazing, right? For me, it was like reading about the world in which I live! :) For the most part, I thought all the essays were interesting, concise, and well-researched. I greatly enjoyed the interview segments – I loved the people selected to be interview and found the discussions thoughtful and enlightening. I especially enjoyed learning about the evolution of the Jane Austen Festival in Bath, And overall, I greatly admired the elegant and attractive design and construction of the book, and appreciated the organized and progressive order of chapters. However, my one complaint about the book’s design is that the print feels unnecessarily small (especially when there is a very large top margin.) I think some larger images would have been a nice touch too.
Readers who, like myself, immerse themselves in all things Jane Austen may not find all the material presented in this compilation to be entirely new. Many topics such as Jane Austen monster mash-ups, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and Mr. Darcy have often been canvassed and the subject of articles and essays before. And while I still found these essays to be well-written and informative, there were others that I found more edifying.
My favorite essays were: “A Grand Tour of Pemberley” – which highlighted and gave the history of the various estates used in Jane Austen film adaptations, “Who Am I? Relationships Between Reader and Heroine Explored Through the Popular ‘Which Jane Austen Heroine Are You?’ Quizzes” – which expounded upon the personalities of Jane Austen’s heroines and how contemporary readers still feel connected to these timeless characters, and “’She’s Everywhere': Jane Austen in the Blogsphere” – which explored my favorite domain – the world of Jane Austen blogs.” The one essay I wasn’t too fond of was “In the Regency Alternate Universe: Jane Austen and Fan Fiction Culture” – which provided a very narrow scope of JAFF online and highlighted only one Thor-inspired tale. (c’mon, the world of JAFF is soooo massive!)
CONCLUSION:
The celebration and fandom of Jane Austen’s novels truly is a cultural phenomenon! This compilation wonderfully combines fan appreciation with academic study and can be enjoyed by die-hard Janeites and new Austen admirers alike! I recommend this book for readers who like to “geek-out” over Jane Austen!
NOTE: I don’t usually comment on errors since they usually don’t hamper my reading, but unfortunately I found some careless errors made by the contributors in their essays that disappointed me a little – such as citing the wrong Emma adaptation and misspelling a blog’s name wrong in several places.
SERIES OVERVIEW:
The Fan Phenomena series by Intellect Books is a collection of books that celebrates the many iconic and popular fandoms in our culture today. To date there are fourteen books published in the Fan Phenomena series with two more expected to be published later this year. Some subjects in this series include: Star Wars, The Hunger Games, Audrey Hepburn, Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Who, and of course, Jane Austen! Each book in this series highlights different facets of each fandom and explores how fans celebrate, appreciate, and share their love for these specific subjects, shows/films, or people.
BOOK OVERVIEW:
Fan Phenomena: Jane Austen is a collection of eleven essays and four interviews. Each essay is contributed by various literary scholars, writers, and academics and focuses on a different area of of the Jane Austen fandom. Included in this elegant collection is over 70 color images representing book covers, memorabilia, media screenshots, and Janeites attending various Jane Austen events. The essays range from eight to thirteen pages in length and include works cited and end notes.
MY ASSESSMENT:
A book just devoted to Jane Austen culture and fandom?!? Sounds amazing, right? For me, it was like reading about the world in which I live! :) For the most part, I thought all the essays were interesting, concise, and well-researched. I greatly enjoyed the interview segments – I loved the people selected to be interview and found the discussions thoughtful and enlightening. I especially enjoyed learning about the evolution of the Jane Austen Festival in Bath, And overall, I greatly admired the elegant and attractive design and construction of the book, and appreciated the organized and progressive order of chapters. However, my one complaint about the book’s design is that the print feels unnecessarily small (especially when there is a very large top margin.) I think some larger images would have been a nice touch too.
Readers who, like myself, immerse themselves in all things Jane Austen may not find all the material presented in this compilation to be entirely new. Many topics such as Jane Austen monster mash-ups, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and Mr. Darcy have often been canvassed and the subject of articles and essays before. And while I still found these essays to be well-written and informative, there were others that I found more edifying.
My favorite essays were: “A Grand Tour of Pemberley” – which highlighted and gave the history of the various estates used in Jane Austen film adaptations, “Who Am I? Relationships Between Reader and Heroine Explored Through the Popular ‘Which Jane Austen Heroine Are You?’ Quizzes” – which expounded upon the personalities of Jane Austen’s heroines and how contemporary readers still feel connected to these timeless characters, and “’She’s Everywhere': Jane Austen in the Blogsphere” – which explored my favorite domain – the world of Jane Austen blogs.” The one essay I wasn’t too fond of was “In the Regency Alternate Universe: Jane Austen and Fan Fiction Culture” – which provided a very narrow scope of JAFF online and highlighted only one Thor-inspired tale. (c’mon, the world of JAFF is soooo massive!)
CONCLUSION:
The celebration and fandom of Jane Austen’s novels truly is a cultural phenomenon! This compilation wonderfully combines fan appreciation with academic study and can be enjoyed by die-hard Janeites and new Austen admirers alike! I recommend this book for readers who like to “geek-out” over Jane Austen!
NOTE: I don’t usually comment on errors since they usually don’t hamper my reading, but unfortunately I found some careless errors made by the contributors in their essays that disappointed me a little – such as citing the wrong Emma adaptation and misspelling a blog’s name wrong in several places.
September 29, 2015
I picked this up as ‘prep’ for my upcoming visit to a JASNA AGM (and because I needed to read about the JASNA lace panties that Joanna Turner has been telling me about since I met her—haha!).
This collection of essays is most useful as a sourcebook for tracking down Janeite materials. The intended audience of the collection is a little unclear, the editing is meh, and the essays themselves are mostly confusing mixes of paraphrasing films and texts or simply pointing to the existence of another Austen-related material.
Here are the few essays I would recommend:
While Rebecca White’s look at two Austen biopics still verges more on the paraphrase (which I didn’t mind since I haven’t see the two films of interest to her), she does have some interesting insights about how the particular films play into or break away from the tropes of Austen’s novels made into film.
Lindsey Seatter’s look at JA heroine online quizzes was an interesting look at which heroines are kept alive in the public imagination today.
Allison Thompson’s investigation of JA crafts was just plain fun, but I admit I’m biased here since I myself am an avid crafter. Tidbits about Regency crafting are mixed in with looks at contemporary JA gifts on Etsy and craft patterns from Ravelry, etc.
Joanna Turner’s overview of JA gifts in our world today and the gifting culture in Regency England and JA’s novels was a nice mix of actual textual studies and contemporary cultural studies.
Eleonora Capra’s fascinating look at the rise of JA in Italy and how she still remains mostly misunderstood is a great gateway essay for those interested in the global JA.
For a more academic look at the JA fandom, stick with Claudia Johnson’s Cults and Cultures or the texts Palgrave has been publishing in the last few years about JA’s afterlives. For a more narrative look at JA fandom, Yaffe’s Among the Janeites sounds like a good place to go. (These goodies are next on my reading list.)
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July 31, 2015823.7 A933Xm 2015
September 6, 2015
Jane Austen fans cannot be filed neatly into a single category any more than Austen’s works can be limited to one literary genre. How might an editor attempt to do justice to the multiplicity of Janeite fandom in a slim volume of essays and interviews? This question was uppermost in my mind as I began reading Fan Phenomena: Jane Austen. The Fan Phenomena series website explains that the goal of the series is to “look at particular examples of ‘fan culture’ and approach the subject in an accessible manner aimed at both fans and those interested in the cultural and social aspects of these fascinating–and often unusual–‘universes’.”
What is the joy of Jane? What is it about her work that keeps readers, and viewers, coming back for more? Is it the Darcy effect? Is it the irony, the wit, the romance? Or is it a combination of all these factors? Many critics and authors have compiled works to analyse this vast and still growing phenomenon of fandom…This collection offers material about the fans, for the fans, by the fans, and offers a combination of the popular and the academic. (p. 5)
Editor Gabrielle Malcom’s introduction provides a clear description of the purpose and scope of the collection. She acknowledges the differences between mainstream fan culture and the academic treatment of Austen. After setting Austen’s work in its historical context with a few concise and insightful paragraphs, she provides brief descriptions of the essays and interviews that follow. While Fan Phenomena: Jane Austen has the look of an academic journal, its design and use of color photographs creates a visually appealing experience for the reader, with the exception of the excessively small font size used for the text of the essays. Although I suspect that the text format is dictated by the Fan Phenomena series as a whole and not unique to this volume, the cramped appearance distracted me from the content at times. I found the format used in the Fan Appreciation interviews to be much more appropriate and reader-friendly.
Each essay is a standalone chapter, exploring these diverse topics: Jane Austen fanfiction, supernatural spin-offs of Austen works, transmedia fandom, architectural incarnations of Pemberley in film adaptations, Darcymania, Jane Austen biopics Becoming Jane and Miss Austen Regrets, “Which Jane Austen Heroine Are You?” online quizzes, Jane Austen-inspired crafts and gifts, the formation and growth of the Jane Austen Society of Italy, and Jane Austen-inspired blogs. A detailed reference section listing books, critical texts, and online links follows each essay, in addition to a more general reference section at the end of the book. My favorite chapters were “A Grand Tour of Pemberley” and “’Shall I Be Stared at Like a Wild Beast in a Zoo?’” Images of Austen in Becoming Jane and Miss Austen Regrets.
Interspersed throughout the book are Austen quotes as well as interviews with author Amanda Grange, members of web video production company Pemberley Digital, author and illustrator Jane Odiwe, and Bath’s Jane Austen Festival director Jackie Herring. These interviews or “Fan Appreciations” personalize fan experiences and were some of my favorite highlights.
Fan Phenomena: Jane Austen successfully presents a balance of popular and academic explorations of Janeite culture to describe many variations of Austen fandom. Internet memes and “I Love Darcy” bumper stickers are given the same cultural consideration as an analysis of Darcy as “an archetypal nineteenth-century hero…[who] has developed into one of the most recognizable and frequently cited romantic figures in popular culture.” (74) However, I was disappointed to find that several massively influential online sites devoted to Austen culture were omitted from the book. For example, no mention is made of the Republic of Pemberley website, apart from an oblique reference to the Pemberley Shoppe Gift Store in the chapter on Austen gifts. A pioneer of Austen online, this community has been active for nearly twenty years and has shaped and cultivated Austen fandom to a degree few other websites or blogs could hope to achieve. While I appreciate that Fan Phenomena: Jane Austen does not seek to present a comprehensive catalog of every expression of Austen fandom, the omission of The Republic of Pemberley represents a serious misstep in charting Jane Austen’s fan universe.
Despite several drawbacks, Fan Phenomena: Jane Austen does offer plenty of diversion, with its range of essays, interviews, and reference materials. Ms. Malcolm and her contributing writers understand much of what makes Jane Austen fans tick.
The fans love the way the clever material appeals to their wit and emotions; they enjoy the engagement with the text and the repetition of that via different means and form. It is the intelligence of Austen’s writing that makes this repeated enjoyment possible. One of the best representations of the fan culture is the sense of society and community that has developed and directly echoes some of the depictions of society in the novels, with the social gatherings, correspondence and knowing-wit within select groups. Fans enjoy the collective engagement and the sharing of the joy and the joke. (p. 8)
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Note: I received one review copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
What is the joy of Jane? What is it about her work that keeps readers, and viewers, coming back for more? Is it the Darcy effect? Is it the irony, the wit, the romance? Or is it a combination of all these factors? Many critics and authors have compiled works to analyse this vast and still growing phenomenon of fandom…This collection offers material about the fans, for the fans, by the fans, and offers a combination of the popular and the academic. (p. 5)
Editor Gabrielle Malcom’s introduction provides a clear description of the purpose and scope of the collection. She acknowledges the differences between mainstream fan culture and the academic treatment of Austen. After setting Austen’s work in its historical context with a few concise and insightful paragraphs, she provides brief descriptions of the essays and interviews that follow. While Fan Phenomena: Jane Austen has the look of an academic journal, its design and use of color photographs creates a visually appealing experience for the reader, with the exception of the excessively small font size used for the text of the essays. Although I suspect that the text format is dictated by the Fan Phenomena series as a whole and not unique to this volume, the cramped appearance distracted me from the content at times. I found the format used in the Fan Appreciation interviews to be much more appropriate and reader-friendly.
Each essay is a standalone chapter, exploring these diverse topics: Jane Austen fanfiction, supernatural spin-offs of Austen works, transmedia fandom, architectural incarnations of Pemberley in film adaptations, Darcymania, Jane Austen biopics Becoming Jane and Miss Austen Regrets, “Which Jane Austen Heroine Are You?” online quizzes, Jane Austen-inspired crafts and gifts, the formation and growth of the Jane Austen Society of Italy, and Jane Austen-inspired blogs. A detailed reference section listing books, critical texts, and online links follows each essay, in addition to a more general reference section at the end of the book. My favorite chapters were “A Grand Tour of Pemberley” and “’Shall I Be Stared at Like a Wild Beast in a Zoo?’” Images of Austen in Becoming Jane and Miss Austen Regrets.
Interspersed throughout the book are Austen quotes as well as interviews with author Amanda Grange, members of web video production company Pemberley Digital, author and illustrator Jane Odiwe, and Bath’s Jane Austen Festival director Jackie Herring. These interviews or “Fan Appreciations” personalize fan experiences and were some of my favorite highlights.
Fan Phenomena: Jane Austen successfully presents a balance of popular and academic explorations of Janeite culture to describe many variations of Austen fandom. Internet memes and “I Love Darcy” bumper stickers are given the same cultural consideration as an analysis of Darcy as “an archetypal nineteenth-century hero…[who] has developed into one of the most recognizable and frequently cited romantic figures in popular culture.” (74) However, I was disappointed to find that several massively influential online sites devoted to Austen culture were omitted from the book. For example, no mention is made of the Republic of Pemberley website, apart from an oblique reference to the Pemberley Shoppe Gift Store in the chapter on Austen gifts. A pioneer of Austen online, this community has been active for nearly twenty years and has shaped and cultivated Austen fandom to a degree few other websites or blogs could hope to achieve. While I appreciate that Fan Phenomena: Jane Austen does not seek to present a comprehensive catalog of every expression of Austen fandom, the omission of The Republic of Pemberley represents a serious misstep in charting Jane Austen’s fan universe.
Despite several drawbacks, Fan Phenomena: Jane Austen does offer plenty of diversion, with its range of essays, interviews, and reference materials. Ms. Malcolm and her contributing writers understand much of what makes Jane Austen fans tick.
The fans love the way the clever material appeals to their wit and emotions; they enjoy the engagement with the text and the repetition of that via different means and form. It is the intelligence of Austen’s writing that makes this repeated enjoyment possible. One of the best representations of the fan culture is the sense of society and community that has developed and directly echoes some of the depictions of society in the novels, with the social gatherings, correspondence and knowing-wit within select groups. Fans enjoy the collective engagement and the sharing of the joy and the joke. (p. 8)
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Note: I received one review copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
August 30, 2017
Most of these articles are interesting, but most are just a listing of adaptations and things that exist.
September 2, 2017
Very good. Enjoyed reading the essays about how Jane Austen has and still influences our cultural lives. Recommend to everyone especially Jane Austen fans.
April 22, 2024
It is a compilation of reviews based on the Jane Austen fandom, from fan fiction at AO3 to movies and Interactive Media.
May 10, 2015
I really enjoyed this book - thoughtful and scholarly, but accessible to the casual fan and Austenite. It covers a great range of topics, mostly focusing on the range of modern adaptations. This is expected, since the book is about Austen's work as object of fandom, not about her work itself.
I was only really disappointed by one chapter, the one on mash-ups of Austen, such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. All this chapter really provided was a survey of available books, which weren't even reviewed in any useful way. I was left wondering what the point of this chapter was, as it's content could have simply been expressed in a bibliographic list in the appendix.
However, one poorly executed chapter in a collection, is a minor complaint. Great book.
I was only really disappointed by one chapter, the one on mash-ups of Austen, such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. All this chapter really provided was a survey of available books, which weren't even reviewed in any useful way. I was left wondering what the point of this chapter was, as it's content could have simply been expressed in a bibliographic list in the appendix.
However, one poorly executed chapter in a collection, is a minor complaint. Great book.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews