What Would Karen Joy Fowler Think?

Longbourn describes itself as “an online community that celebrates the work of Jane Austen as we look forward to the Focus Features release of Pride & Prejudice.” In other words, and as if the big ol’ picture of Keira Knightley on the home page didn’t give it away, a marketing tool. Still, it is an online book club devoted to reading Austen, or at least purports to be… So far, the big attraction seems not to be the promised “discussion questions” and “guest chats with Jane Austen scholars,” but an “exclusive clip” from the film. And even that seems to spark doubts among the visiting fans; one recent posting to the message board is headlined, “New clip? Indeed it is not.”

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