A mashup novel, or mashup book (also mash-up), is a work of fiction which combines a pre-existing text, often a classic work of fiction, with a certain popular genre such as vampire

Vampire

Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...

 or zombie

Zombie

Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...

 narratives. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a 2009 parody novel by Seth Grahame-Smith. It is a mashup combining Jane Austen's classic 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice with elements of modern zombie fiction, crediting Austen as co-author...

, which combines Jane Austen

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...

's classic novel Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...

with elements of modern zombie fiction, is arguably the first, and certainly one of the most famous and successful works in the genre, and has been credited with spawning a rash of imitations. The term "Mashup" was borrowed from the world of computers and music, as Adam Cohen stated in his New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

editorial about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: "The idea of combining two data sources into a new product began in the tech world (also think music remixes) and is spreading — including to book publishing."

Genre

Ward Sutton

Ward Sutton

Ward Sutton is an American illustrator, cartoonist and writer born in Minneapolis and based in New York City. His comic strip, "Sutton Impact" , was published in The Village Voice from 1995 to 2007....

, writing in The New York Times, states that "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, captivated readers and unleashed a whole new genre." Mashup books are seen as distinct from parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 novels like Bored of the Rings

Bored of the Rings

Bored of the Rings is the title of a paperback parody of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. This short novel was written by Henry N. Beard and Douglas C. Kenney, who later founded National Lampoon...

, and parallel novels like The Wind Done Gone

The Wind Done Gone

The Wind Done Gone is the first novel written by Alice Randall. It was a bestselling historical parallel novel that reinterprets the famous American novel Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.- Plot summary :...

or Wicked

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, is a parallel novel published in 1995 written by Gregory Maguire and illustrated by Douglas Smith. It is a revisionist look at the land and characters of Oz from L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, its sequels, and the...

since they do not merely make fun of the original text, or tell an alternative version of it, but also introduce the themes and characteristics of a wholly different genre.

While most works in this genre (or cross-genre trend) rely on fictional texts as their basis, other works like Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter is a 2010 mashup novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, released on March 2, 2010.-Plot summary:The epistolary-style book is written as a biography of Abraham Lincoln, based on "secret diaries" kept by the 16th President and given to the author by a vampire named Henry...

superimpose the popular genres over historical figures and events. A more recent phenomenon within the genre is the combination of more than two original works, or genres, as in the case of Robinson Crusoe (The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope), which combines the original novel

Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and...

 with elements borrowed from the works of H.P. Lovecraft as well as the popular genre of werewolf fiction, and is accordingly attributed to three authors - Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...

, H.P. Lovecraft, and Peter Clines.

Publishing trend

Quirk Books

Quirk Books

Quirk Books is an independent book publisher based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.The company was founded by David Borgenicht, co-author of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, which has spawned sequels, as well as a TBS television series and a board game. Quirk develops "Coffee...

, an independent publisher which achieved great success with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in April 2009, followed it up with several more mashups of literary classics and in 2010 introduced its "Quirk Classics" imprint made specifically for the genre. Other publishers soon joined in the trend, as Jennifer Schuessler pointed out in a December 2009 New York Times piece on the phenomenon:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has spent eight months on the New York Times best-seller list, spawned several imitators and injected some fresh blood -- and male readers -- into an Austen industry dominated by gauzy romances. Goodbye, The Private Diary of Mr. Darcy. Hello, Mr. Darcy, Vampyre, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is a parody novel by Ben H. Winters, with Jane Austen credited as co-author. It is a mashup story containing elements from Jane Austen's 1811 novel Sense and Sensibility and common tropes from sea monster stories. It is the thematic sequel to another 2009...

and Dawn of the Dreadfuls

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls is a parody novel by Steve Hockensmith. It is a prequel to Seth Grahame-Smith's 2009 novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, focusing on "the early life and training of Elizabeth Bennet, heroine of the earlier Pride and Prejudice and Zombies as...

, a prequel to Zombies that lists Austen as an author despite the lack of what Hollywood types refer to as "participation."

Several notable publishing houses like Del Rey

Del Rey Books

Del Rey Books is a branch of Ballantine Books, which is owned by Random House and, in turn since 1998, by Bertelsmann AG. It is a separate imprint established in 1977 under the editorship of author Lester del Rey and his wife Judy-Lynn del Rey. It specializes in science fiction and fantasy...

 and Harper

HarperCollins

HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...

 also started publishing books in the genre, while some smaller publishers like Coscom Entertainment

Coscom Entertainment

Coscom Entertainment is a Canadian publisher. It is mainly known for comic books, although it is now publishing an increasing range of mashup books combining classical public domain literature with zombie fiction. Publications include Ryan C. Thomas's The Summer I Died, works by author and...

 began flooding the market with rashly-made zombie or vampire themed versions of famous works in an attempt to cash in on the fad (similar to the mockbuster

Mockbuster

A mockbuster is a film created with the apparent intention of piggy-backing on the publicity of a major film with a similar title or theme and are often made with a low budget. Often these films are created to be released direct-to-video at the same time as the mainstream film reaches theaters or...

 phenomenon in film).

Notable examples

Title	Authors	Publisher (Year)	Original text / Historical figure	Genre
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a 2009 parody novel by Seth Grahame-Smith. It is a mashup combining Jane Austen's classic 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice with elements of modern zombie fiction, crediting Austen as co-author...	Jane Austen Jane Austen Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...  & Seth Grahame-Smith Seth Grahame-Smith Seth Grahame-Smith is an American best-selling author, screenwriter, and producer of film and television. He is best known as the author of The New York Times best-selling novels Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, both of which are being adapted as feature films...	Quirk Books Quirk Books Quirk Books is an independent book publisher based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.The company was founded by David Borgenicht, co-author of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, which has spawned sequels, as well as a TBS television series and a board game. Quirk develops "Coffee...  (2009)	Pride and Prejudice Pride and Prejudice Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...	Zombie fiction Zombies in popular culture Zombies are fictional undead creatures regularly encountered in horror and fantasy themed works. They are typically depicted as mindless, reanimated corpses with a hunger for human flesh, and in some cases, human brains in particular...
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is a parody novel by Ben H. Winters, with Jane Austen credited as co-author. It is a mashup story containing elements from Jane Austen's 1811 novel Sense and Sensibility and common tropes from sea monster stories. It is the thematic sequel to another 2009...	Jane Austen & Ben H. Winters Ben H. Winters - Biography :Ben H. Winters is best known for the 2009 parody novel Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, which reached the New York Times best seller list in September 2009. His second novel, Android Karenina , was published in June of 2010; his young adult novel, The Secret Life of Ms....	Quirk Books (2009)	Sense and Sensibility Sense and Sensibility Sense and Sensibility, published in 1811, is a British romance novel by Jane Austen, her first published work under the pseudonym, "A Lady." Jane Austen is considered a pioneer of the romance genre of novels, and for the realism portrayed in her novels, is one the most widely read writers in...	Sea monster Sea monster Sea monsters are sea-dwelling mythical or legendary creatures, often believed to be of immense size.Marine monsters can take many forms, including sea dragons, sea serpents, or multi-armed beasts. They can be slimy or scaly and are often pictured threatening ships or spouting jets of water...  legends
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls is a parody novel by Steve Hockensmith. It is a prequel to Seth Grahame-Smith's 2009 novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, focusing on "the early life and training of Elizabeth Bennet, heroine of the earlier Pride and Prejudice and Zombies as...	Steve Hockensmith Steve Hockensmith Steve Hockensmith is an American author. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky. He now lives in California.-Biography:Hockensmith is the author of the Holmes on the Range mystery series...	Quirk Books (2010)	characters from Pride and Prejudice	Zombie fiction
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter is a 2010 mashup novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, released on March 2, 2010.-Plot summary:The epistolary-style book is written as a biography of Abraham Lincoln, based on "secret diaries" kept by the 16th President and given to the author by a vampire named Henry...	Seth Grahame-Smith	Grand Central Publishing Hachette Book Group USA Hachette Book Group is a publishing company owned by Hachette Livre, the largest publishing company in France, and the second largest publisher in the world. Hachette Livre is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lagardère Group. HBG was formed when Hachette Livre purchased the Time Warner Book Group from...  (2010)	Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...	Vampire literature
Android Karenina Android Karenina Android Karenina is a 2010 parody novel written by Ben H. Winters and based on Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. The novel is a mashup, adding steam punk elements to the Russian 19th-century environment of Anna Karenina, a book first published in 1877....	Leo Tolstoy Leo Tolstoy Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...  & Ben H. Winters	Quirk Books (2010)	Anna Karenina Anna Karenina Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger...	Steampunk fiction
I am Scrooge Ebenezer Scrooge Ebenezer Scrooge is the principal character in Charles Dickens's 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol. At the beginning of the novel, Scrooge is a cold-hearted, tight-fisted and greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which give people happiness... : A Zombie Story for Christmas	Charles Dickens Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...  & Adam Roberts	Gollancz (2009)	A Christmas Carol A Christmas Carol A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...	Zombie fiction
Little Women and Werewolves	Louisa May Alcott Louisa May Alcott Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women was set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, and published in 1868...  & Porter Grand	Del Rey Books Del Rey Books Del Rey Books is a branch of Ballantine Books, which is owned by Random House and, in turn since 1998, by Bertelsmann AG. It is a separate imprint established in 1977 under the editorship of author Lester del Rey and his wife Judy-Lynn del Rey. It specializes in science fiction and fantasy...  (2010)	Little Women Little Women Little Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott . The book was written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts. It was published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869...	Werewolf fiction
Little Vampire Women	Louisa May Alcott & Lynn Messina	HarperTeen HarperCollins HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...  (2010)	Little Women	Vampire literature
Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter is a 2009 novel by A.E. Moorat. It is a story based on the life of Queen Victoria, but incorporating a fictional account of her dealings with demons.-Plot summary:...	A.E. Moorat	Hodder (2009)	Queen Victoria	Demon fiction
Jane Slayre	Charlotte Bronte Charlotte Brontë Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood, whose novels are English literature standards...  & Sherri Browning Erwin	Gallery Books Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...  (2010)	Jane Eyre Jane Eyre Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published in London, England, in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. with the title Jane Eyre. An Autobiography under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York...	Vampire literature
Paul Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...  is Undead Paul Is Dead "Paul is dead" is an urban legend suggesting that Paul McCartney of the English rock band The Beatles died in 1966 and was secretly replaced by a look-alike.... : The British Zombie Invasion British Invasion The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...	Alan Goldsher Alan Goldsher - Music :Goldsher is a session and touring bassist. He has worked on the Cypress Hill remix of Janet Jackson's song "Because of Love" and on the Naughty by Nature-produced debut album by Zhané...	Gallery Books (2010)	The Beatles The Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...	Zombie fiction
Robinson Crusoe (The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope)	Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,... , H.P. Lovecraft & Peter Clines	Permuted Press (2010)	Robinson Crusoe Robinson Crusoe Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and...	Lovecraft Mythos; Werewolf fiction
Mansfield Park and Mummies	Jane Austen & Vera Nazarian Vera Nazarian Vera Nazarian is an Armenian-Russian American writer of fantasy, science fiction and other "wonder fiction" including Mythpunk, an artist, and the publisher of Norilana Books...	Norilana Books Norilana Books Norilana Books is an independent publishing company, founded in August 2006 and based in Los Angeles, California. It is operated and owned by Vera Nazarian. Norilana publishes reprints of previously published Science Fiction and Fantasy works, including the novels of Modean Moon...  (2009)	Mansfield Park Mansfield Park Mansfield Park may mean:* Mansfield Park by Jane Austen* Mansfield Park , based on the novel, directed by Patricia Rozema, starring Frances O'Connor, Embeth Davidtz, and Sheila Gish in 1999...	Mummy fiction
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After	Jane Austen & Steve Hockensmith	Quirk Books (2011)	Characters from Pride and Prejudice	Zombie fiction
The Meowmorphosis	Franz Kafka Franz Kafka Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...  & Cook Coleridge	Quirk Books (2011)	The Metamorphosis The Metamorphosis The Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of short fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world...

External links

• Quirk Classics website - imprint of Quirk Books
  Quirk Books
  Quirk Books is an independent book publisher based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.The company was founded by David Borgenicht, co-author of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, which has spawned sequels, as well as a TBS television series and a board game. Quirk develops "Coffee...
  
   dedicated to Mashups.
• Sussex Chainsaw Massacre: The horrification of Jane Austen - overview of genre and review of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
  Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
  Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is a parody novel by Ben H. Winters, with Jane Austen credited as co-author. It is a mashup story containing elements from Jane Austen's 1811 novel Sense and Sensibility and common tropes from sea monster stories. It is the thematic sequel to another 2009...
  
  , New York Magazine, 6 September 2009.
• Pride And Prejudice And Zombies Spin-Offs Are Out Of Control! 11 Classic Monster Mashups - The Huffington Post
  The Huffington Post
  The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
  
  , 28 April 2010.