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Turning Elizabeth Bennett into a zombie-hunter is the latest brainstorm for milking the Jane Austen experience beyond the six actual novels penned in the early 1800s by everyone's favorite maiden aunt.

As bewildering as it may be to some of my guy friends, we're always jonesing for Jane. There have been countless stage productions and eight film and TV adaptations of Pride and Prejudice alone (the 1995 miniseries is the one with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy), and those are just the faithful, Regency-era treatments. In fact, those are just the faithful treatments in English.

It doesn't count modern retellings in 1990s LA (Clueless), Bollywood (Bride & Prejudice) and modern London (Bridget Jones's Diary - featuring, again, Colin Firth as Mark Darcy -- a lawyer with an oft-noted resemblance to Colin Firth).

These are only the most visible offerings in a "make your own Austen" oeuvre that rivals Star Trek fiction. There are dozens of mainstream-published pastisches (novels that continue the stories). There are mysteries starring not only Mr. and Mrs. Darcy but Jane Austen herself. There's even a little gem devoted to the  lost sex scenes of Jane Austen. In the fan fiction world, it's easy to find crossovers with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other supernatural universes.

So naturally, Seth Grahame Smith (author of How to Survive a Horror Movie and, um, something else) though it was only the logical next step to turn Elizabeth Bennett into a zombie hunter. The writing process was simple: take the original text and add some extra scenes of zombie mayhem during those long spells between assemblies and walks to Meryton when the Bennett sisters were supposed to be embroidering screens and perfecting assorted other accomplishments. (Maybe that's why Elizabeth's performance on the pianoforte fails to impress Lady Catherine?) The blurb from publisher Quirk Books:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies — Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Complete with 20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice), this insanely funny expanded edition will introduce Jane Austen’s classic novel to new legions of fans.

My only disappointment is that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! is not yet in stock. You have to pre-order it.

It's already rumored that "Hollywood" is in a bidding war for the movie rights. I'd link somewhere but everyone is simply stating that there is a rumored bidding war for the movie rights.