Oooh Mr. Darcy! A Look Back at the Early Days of Erotic Classic Novel Retellings
Before Archive of Our Own arrived on the scene as THE home for fanfiction on the internet, before Bridgerton gave us an entire season of George III/Queen Charlotte fanfiction, there was a popular wave of novels that took literary classics (Pride & Prejudice, Little Women etc. etc.) that were either sexed-up versions of the originals OR continuations of their storylines (some including sex scenes, some not). While some of these books look like cash grabs, it’s still a genre that’s going strong – just ask anyone who’s searched Amazon for historical romance lately. In 2024, some of those earlier re-tellings/adaptations/smutty versions have slipped into the cultural ether, and some of them will never be forgotten. Here are my thoughts on a handful of those early lit-fanfics.
Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll, Jane Austen
This is the grandaddy of all public domain erotic romantic classic retellings, and one that spawned a cottage industry of erotic novels – specifically erotic Pride and Prejudice novels. Following in the wake of Austen, it follows Lizzie and Darcy through the complicated first year plus of their marriage, which has a lot of tumult and many personal travails for the two of them to surmount.
Best Scene: Their wedding night, where Darcy is romantic but awkward.
Most WTF Scene: There’s a lot of hard competition here with the whole poaching subplot, but really it’s the conga line of trauma Bedoll puts Lizzie and Darcy through.
Hottest Moment: The wall sex. (Gotta go with the wall sex.)
Pairings: All of the canonical ones and a few original character/original character moments, though I’m kinda dismayed by the author’s insistence that Charles and Jane would have a terrible sex life compared to Lizzie and Darcy.
Overall Rating: A solid C+
Lusty Little Women by Margaret Pearl, Louise May Alcott
No, not even Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women has been spared the sexed-up treatment. Pearl also adapted Little Men and turned it into an adult novel for the “Lusty” series (should you want to picture that!) Yes, it ages everyone up. Yes, it’s mainly big extracts of the novel with a few sex scenes thrown in. The sex here is surprisingly conservative and brief compared to many erotic retellings on the market these days, whether extant for free on AO3 or available on Amazon.
Best Scene: Jo and Laurie experimenting in a glen.
Most WTF Scene: A tie between Mr. Laurence and Marmee impulsively getting it on for a paragraph and a half and John and Meg indulging in food sex.
Hottest Moment: The Friedrich/Jo scene in his study.
Pairings: Jo/Laurie; Jo/Friedrich; Mr. Laurence/Marmee; Meg/John; Amy/Laurie
Overall Rating: A D. Wayyy too much regurgitated prose from the original. Its raison d’être are the sex scenes, but they’re so brief that it’s not worthwhile to read the whole thing. And in spite of all hints, the author sticks with the canonical pairings. Just read Alcott; it’s cheaper.
A Room with a View: The Wild and Wanton Edition by Coco Rousseau, E.M. Forster
There’s not taking any risks with your prose – and then there’s taking so many risks that everything comes off as ludicrous. In this version of A Room with a View, George and Lucy get it on in the patch of violets (Charlotte moves like a T-1000 in this version, apparently) which makes the tension Forster weaves into the novel regarding their mutual desire and inability to consummate it utterly moot. Also the two of them have penetrative sex where George does not pull out twice before they’re married. Lucy knows nothing about (rudimentary) birth control. These events happen months apart. Huh? I will give this book credit for being the most erotica-leaning volume of the Wild and Wanton versions I’ve read, with kink and non-vanilla sex acts afoot.
Best Scene: Though it makes no sense at all, Lucy and George bedecking each other with violets in the field post-coitus.
Most WTF Scene: The author invents a maid character who exists to have lesbian sex with Lucy and introduce her to anal penetration. Lucy comes while thinking of George, so I guess it’s not cheating? We never see the maid again, and Lucy tells George nothing of the incident.
Hottest Moment: Moments after meeting, George and Lucy make out in the hallway of the pensione. It’s the right mix of impulsive youthfulness and passion.
Pairings: George/Lucy; Lucy/Cecil (both of which happen in a fantasy sequence); Lucy/OC; Mr. Bebee/Charlotte (!!)
Overall Rating: C- for being nonsensical and OOC. Gains points for being actively hot in patches. Loses it for making me picture Mr. Beebe’s o-face.
Persuasion: The Wild and Wanton Edition by Micah Persell, Jane Austen
Now this is more like it! The author understands the messy, awkward passion between Anne and Frederick, and they are both credibly flailing virgins here.
Best Scene: Frederick and Anne finally coming (hah!) together after their long estrangement.
Most WTF Scene: Fredrick is so overcome with his stymied desire for Anne, he humps her shawl to climax when she leaves it behind. Erm. Yes.
Hottest Moment: Their first time, which is both hot and credibly awkward.
Pairings: Anne/Frederick. There is no outside temptation and they are very into each other and it’s kinda great.
Overall Rating: A. Even with the shawl scene, it’s got that perfect mix of awkwardness, sensuality and devotion make it worth reading.
Sense and Sensibility: The Wild and Wanton Edition by Lauren Lane, Jane Austen
This one also manages to have a better balance of sex scenes to actual prose, with some creative pairings. Again, you have to ignore the fact that there’s a lot of unprotected sex between unmarried people happening here.
Best Scene: Colonel Brandon and Marianne coming together after Marianne wasting almost the entire novel having sex with Willoughby.
Most WTF Scene: So much John/Fanny sex, like so much. It’s a couple of scenes, but also Enough. (Okay, so this had me glggling like a naughty kid. In the UK “Fanny” is slang for female genitalia – Ed.)
Hottest Moment: Edward and Elinor get together very early here, and their semi-forbidden trysting is a lot of fun.
Pairings: All of the canonical ones, including some explicit John/Fanny, eavesdropped upon by Elinor.
Overall Rating: A B+, fun for what it is, inventive.
North and South: The Wild and Wanton Edition Volumes 1 and 2 by Brenna Chase, Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel about class mores is rather a perfect target for smutting it up. This one stays historically accurate about the amount of guilt John and Margaret experience as they fantasize about each other, give in too early, and make a royal mess of John’s desk.
Best Scene: Margaret and John making good use of his desk at the mill.
Most WTF Scene: This one doesn’t have any WTF moments, as it doesn’t branch too far afield from John and Margaret.
Hottest Moment: All of their many shared daydreams about each other.
Pairings: All canonical. There is also some Fanny/George
Overall Rating: A- for keeping in proper step with the tone of the novel.
Wuthering Heights: The Wild and Wanton Edition by Annabella Bloom, Emily Bronte
This is also a successful blend of new sex and old prose. There have been millions of Wuthering Heights adaptations, and this one works well and has so much servant voyeurism to fill in the plot holes. The second-kinkiest edition (hee!)
Best Scene: Heathcliff and Cathy consummating things on the moors.
Most WTF Scene: So much servant voyeurism, y’all.
Hottest Moment: The Catherine/Linton/Hareton threesome.
Pairings: All of the canonical ones, plus Cathy/Linton/Hareton.
Overall Rating: B+ with added points for creativity.
Do you have a favorite professionally published erotic retelling of a classic novel? Share it below.
All P&P retellings:
Affinity and Affection by Susan Adriani
Sharon Lathan’s Darcy Saga
Mistress by Sophie Turner
Yep, I’ve read some of these!!
Oh dear lord I just started reading one out of curiosity and the language is just unreadable. Nevermind the silliness of the plot.
You can’t say that without telling us which one!
Dr. Darcy Takes a Bride. The writing is faux-old school but actually just really, really bad. Oof.
The florid words for various sex organs are also just cringeworthy, like the worst caricature of bad sex writing.
I checked out the start of the erotic Wuthering Heights book, but it seemed to be copying the original text and adding frequent sex/lust-think. It felt like Lockwood couldn’t go five minutes without getting an erection, and by the third time I’d come across the term “my staff”, I started imagining him holding a wizard’s staff (complete with knob at the end), which was when I gave up. There are some intensely passionate characters in WH, but Lockwood just isn’t one of them for me, and I didn’t feel there was any real attempt to integrate his priapism into the story either. Sorry, not my thing!
Yep, that’s how a lot of the Wild and Wanton ones work for the most part.
It just boggles my mind that there’s someone out there who thought: “You know what would make P&P better? Some wallbanging.” There are a few chaste romances where I’d want more explicit sex because I simply can’t wrap my head around their emotional transitions otherwise (like, there’s a non-graphic rape in a novel I read as a treen and I spent an inordinate amount of time just trying to wrap my head around how you go from brutal rape to love and I still don’t understand it.). Mostly though, I feel like copious sex doesn’t match the vibe of these stories, which is all about longing and desires deferred. That’s part of their hotness, I feel…they’re the o.g. slow burns.
For me, it’s fascinating what having sex happen in some of these changes. A Room with a View in particular feels all wrong because George and Lucy are basically having casual sex while she’s talking about marrying Cecil. Not in 1907!
Didn’t know this kind of novel existed, so thank you for discovering them for me. I always thought that this was the kind of thing you can find in Wattpad or that kind of places.
It does not look like something I would like to read. I like retellings in the sense of taking the plot and the dynamics of the characters and putting them in a different time or setting, as they do in many movies, like ‘Bride and prejudices’.
But these books sound like a kind of correction of classics, as if Jane Austen or Louise May Alcott did something wrong. Not my cuppa.
Nope, and now people pay cash for them on Amazon!
This is the sort of thing that leaves me shaking my head in bemusement and wondering why.
It’s understandable to me – people like boning, they love these established stories – ergo! Publisher sees dollar signs.
If you know anything about Louise May Alcott and what some modern scholars (and readers) believe about her sexuality… No! Let’s be more imaginative.
Also, why sex up E.M. Forster without adding queer sex? Tsk!
The Little Women/Little Men retellings are especially dull because the sex is so brief, and adds absolutely nothing to the narrative. In Little Men it’s ridiculous because Marmee will be thinking about Mr. Lawrence dying and remember the had sex in the previous book and she’ll be sad for a minute but that’s it. Also yeah, I’m into the idea of Jo running off with a woman so I was like “at least have fun with it!”
The ARWAV one does have queer sex, but it’s handled so oddly. Give me some George and Freddy, already!
I just can’t with these. I don’t mind a retelling – like Sally Malcom’s Perfect Day a modern Persuasion (that’s one of the better ones – I read a truly awful retelling of P&P once) – but “updating” classic novels to add raunchy bits just doesn’t appeal. I have no desire to read about Darcy and Lizzie or Anne and Wentworth shagging!
As for the many, many books out there that either “continue” the story or venture into “what if…?” territory (Darcy is a pirate! Lizzie is disguised as his cabin boy!) – to me, they’re fanfiction – which I have no problem with (I’ve written some), but I think it’s a bit much to ask people to pay to read it.
TL:DR – not a fan.
I’m super picky with them – They have a smutty version of The Count of Monte Cristo, of all things, in the Wild and Wanton series.
I appreciate this blast from the past. I can kind of remember when some of these books were first being talked about, but I never got into them myself. I will say they make a bit more sense to me than the mild horror version phase, which included gems like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters, and Abe Lincoln Vampire Slayer.
I remember hearing about them for the first time in the Manderley catalog (memories!).
That reminds me that they made a werewolf takeoff on Little Women to capitalize on this trend…
I forgot to add that, in the A Room with a View retelling, George steals Lucy’s underwear, folds it up, and stuffs it in his pocket.
Hilarious if you know ANYTHING about the combination underwear worn back then.
Hah – he’d need VERY deep pockets!! Or a satchel…
Poor man should’ve turned them into a cape!