Literary classics get the 'Fifty Shades of Grey' treatment
Watch out, bibliophiles, the classics are getting revamped with a fresh shade of grey 鈥� make that Fifty Shades of Grey.
Forget stuffy Victorian customs; Mr. Darcy, Mr. Rochester, and Captain Nemo have been taking lessons from 海角大神 Grey of "Fifty Shades" fame in the latest example of erotica-obsession to hit stores.
As the wryly noted in a piece titled 鈥淥h Mr. Rochester! The Classics Get Naughty,鈥� 鈥淎s if being mashed up with zombies and transported to American high schools weren鈥檛 enough, Ms. Austen and several of her fiction-writing peers are seeing their novels morphed into erotica.鈥�
The new series by electronic publishing house Total E-Bound is titled 鈥淐landestine Classics,鈥� and, starting Monday, takes readers of such classics like 鈥�Jane Eyre鈥� and 鈥淧ride and Prejudice鈥� from polite parlor conversation to naughty bedroom banter. The series includes a sadomasochistic version of Charlotte Bronte鈥檚 鈥淛ane Eyre,鈥� a steamy bedroom take on Jane Austen鈥檚 鈥淧ride and Prejudice鈥� and 鈥淣orthanger Abbey,鈥� and even gay-love renderings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle鈥檚 鈥淎 Study in Scarlet鈥� and Jules Verne鈥檚 鈥淭wenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.鈥�
Though the series was planned before 鈥淔ifty Shades of Grey鈥� became bestseller gold, it鈥檚 certainly getting a boost from the erotica trend, Total E-Bound chief executive Claire Siemaszkiewicz told the WSJ.
For 鈥淐landestine Classics,鈥� Ms. Siemaszkiewicz hired five erotica writers to inject the original classics (which are in the public domain and therefore not subject to copyright laws) with naughty banter, groping, and racy sex scenes. According to the WSJ, the original text is largely unchanged, simply supplemented with 10,000 or so words which take readers 鈥渂ehind the closed bedroom doors of our favourite, most beloved British characters,鈥� as 鈥檚 website promises.
The books, which will be available for download Monday, retail for between $4.00 and $5.00. Each book comes with a sexometer and erotic rating (most are a relatively mild 2).
From the sounds of it, not all sauced-up text conforms to the vernacular of the time. In an excerpt from the R-rated 鈥淧ride and Prejudice,鈥� Elizabeth refers to Darcy as 鈥渉ot, spicy, and all man,鈥� as he 鈥渓ifted her skirts quickly and removed her undergarments, then fumbled to free himself from the confines of his own clothing.鈥�
"I was careful to make sure that I kept to the same language and the same tone so that it didn't sound anachronistic or jarring to the rest of the book," Desiree Holt, a 76-year-old retired music publicist who penned the racy scenes and shares co-authorship with Jane Austen on the book鈥檚 cover, told the .
(The WSJ also consulted with Austen scholar Devoney Looser, who said it was improbable Ms. Bennet and Mr. Darcy would be able to slip in and out of their clothes time and again so efficiently, given the strictures in clothing at the time.)
Would Austen or the Bronte sisters be turning in their graves? Or, as the WSJ put it, 鈥渢urning fifty shades of red?鈥�
Siemaszkiewicz doesn鈥檛 think so. 鈥淚 like to think if the Bronte sisters were writing today, their books would be a lot racier,鈥� she told the Journal. 鈥淏ut they were stifled by convention at the time.鈥�
Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.
