ABSTRACT
In this essay, Kylie Mirmohamadi studies minor character elaboration as a subset of Austen spin-off fiction, noting that extra-diegetic existence for Austen’s characters is a long-standing and ongoing publishing phenomenon. These narratives work, she finds, to re-situate minor characters by centralising a figure that had hitherto been on the periphery of the narrative action, dramatic thrust, and emotional economy of a canonical novel. Focusing on a small group of contemporary novels that re-work Pride and Prejudice, the chapter highlights how the novels’ authors develop the character of Mary Bennet—conventionally positioned as the background for her sisters’ happy endings, or as fodder for ridicule from characters, narrator, readers, and adapters alike—in new directions by providing her with an enhanced literary and intellectual sensibility and a trajectory towards feminist enlightenment.
