Jane Austen and William Shakespeare

This volume explores the multiple connections between the two most canonical authors in English, Jane Austen and William Shakespeare. The collection reflects on the historical, literary, critical and filmic links between the authors and their fates. Considering the implications of the popular cult of Austen and Shakespeare, the essays are interdisciplinary and comparative: ranging from Austens and Shakespeares biographies to their presence in the modern vampire saga Twilight, passing by Shakespearean echoes in Austens novels and the authors afterlives on the improv stage, in wartime cinema, modern biopics and crime fiction. The volume concludes with an account of the Exhibition Will & Jane at the Folger Shakespeare Library, which literally brought the two authors together in the autumn of 2016. Collectively, the essays mark and celebrate what we have called the long-standing love affair between William Shakespeare and Jane Austenover 200 years and counting.