ABSTRACT
In this essay, Melanie Borrego explores fanfiction and the creative impulse to explore gaps in an original text—in this case Jane Austen’s fiction. She examines the relationship of Austen’s fanfiction to the array of Internet communities that function as repositories for fan production, among them sites such as The Republic of Pemberley’s Bits of Ivory, Beyond Austen, The Derbyshire Writers Guild (Dwiggie), DarcyAndLizzy, and A Happy Assembly (also known as The Meryton Assembly). She argues that the visibility of fanfiction, along with other expressions of fan devotion, has increased exponentially in recent years, encouraging many nascent writers to engage with Austen’s texts. Despite the fact that fanfiction can be derided for the quality of its writing, she argues that, like the communities of women in Austen’s novels, fanfiction writers and readers work together in an excellent example of what Henry Jenkins called ‘participatory culture’.
