Where is the line drawn between literature and fanfiction? Length? Character development? Readability? Publication? The physical presence of the author? As far as I can tell, the answer lies somewhere between the latter two.

Even though she’s been dead for quite some time now, Jane Austen’s books still excite quite a bit of admiration. So enamored with her characters (namely Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy) do some become that they take it upon themselves to continue the story. While this shouldn’t be surprising considering the web space devoted to alterations and continuations of living authors’ work (fanfiction.net, for example), it is still odd to come across a book on a shelf in a store that has somehow escaped the odious label of fanfiction.

Personally, I adore Jane Austen’s work. Pride and Prejudice has an especially dear place on my bookshelf (it’s one of the only books I own multiple copies of), so when I ran across multiple versions of what happened to the Darcys after their wedding, I found myself intrigued. Since that day, I’ve read four different versions.

Each one was unique, but overall they ranged in worth just as the online unpublished fanfictions did. Some were far more developed and intricate while others seeemed merely interested in what happened between the sheets of the Darcys’ marital bed. I even found myself wondering if one of the authors had ever even picked up the actual novel or had simply watched the condensed 2005 Kiera Knightly/Matthw Macfayden version. Overt references to the movie abounded and always in instances where the book was drastically different. It amazed me that something like this could cross the line between the unpublishable and the literary. But, then again, maybe it’s best to just take it as one more reminder that subjectivity rules here.