‘Thanks for Fanning’: Online Austen Fan Fiction

Abstract

Thsi chapter traverses the discursive space mapped and staked out by the dedicated Austen fan site, the Republic of Pemberley, and its offshoot, the Derbyshire Writer's Guild. It pays attention to the ways in which these online spaces evoke material and 'real world' places, generating a sense of civic municipality as well as literary community. Drawing on the insights of LIbrary and Computer Studies, this chapter takes up the linguistic clues set up in the nomenclature used at these sites and reads their fan fiction collections in relation to the practices and traditions of the bricks-and-mortar library and its physical archive. It goes on to offer close readings of a number of Persuasion-based stories from the Bits of Ivory archive at the Republic of Pemberley and the Fantasia Gallery at the Derbyshire Writers' Guilt.