‘Canon can only get you so far’: Janeites Read and Write ‘The Bennet Brother’

Abstract

This chapter analyses a collaborative serial penned between January and September 2013 by published Austen spin off at the ‘Austen Authors’ website. This reading gives an account of the textual and intertextual implications of this endeavour’s location(s) within its digital provenance and print culture background. It comments further on the mimetic functions of this updated use of nineteenth-century serial forms of publishing, especially in relation to their specific writing demands and active reading practices. This incremental narrative, like the other Austen fan productions discussed throughout this study, reveals a synergy between urtext, spin off writing and adaptation. It similarly signifies an expansion of the boundaries of the canon, and the open-ended textual proliferation enacted by and enfolded into spin off and adaptation processes and products.