There’s saving literature, and there’s saving it by scrapping the stuff that makes it literature. Author Ann Herendeen’s self-described “queering” of Pride/Prejudice doesn’t stink because it’s got heaps of explicit gay and straight sex. Dawn of the Dreadfuls isn’t substandard because it’s gory and has monsters, which Zombies author Seth Grahame-Smith first defended as the personification of late-Georgian horrors (the ever-present English militia, the ghastly social mores, etc.). These books are objectionable because they strike out Austen’s greatest contributions—seething satire, brilliant language, critique of classism—while helping themselves to the benefits of her name brand.

— Sarah Ball has a really nice takedown of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and all those other awful Austen-pillagers. (via newsweek)