What will get younger folks studying basic literature? Higher blurbs? Adjustments within the faculty curriculum? Flashy new biographies of useless authors? Or may it’s pastel pink covers emblazoned with characters that look as if they simply received again from Comedian-Con?
Writer Penguin Random Home (PRH) is attempting its luck with the latter: its youth imprint, Puffin, has introduced a collection of latest editions of Jane Austen novels pitched at younger romance readers. Though Austen’s tales will stay the identical, the covers of those editions function cartoonish illustrations of the characters, and are being marketed as “filled with meet-cutes, missed connections and drama”. This description makes it sound as if these basic works are akin to the type of modern romance novels which are vastly common on TikTok with youngsters and younger adults.
There have been successive makes an attempt by publishers to “crack” BookTok (the nickname for TikTok content material about books, which has the ability to propel titles into bestseller lists) – you want solely examine their social media accounts to see the desperation to go viral. And it’s simple to see why, as publishers wrestle to succeed in younger folks who research present are more and more bored with studying.
BookTok is unpredictable – an obscure 1995 dystopia and a Dostoevsky novella are among the many titles it has changed into hits – and due to this fact onerous to focus on. However the one factor we all know for positive is that its customers love romance – “spicy” novels by authors comparable to Colleen Hoover, Sarah J Maas and Emily Henry have change into bestsellers due to their reputation on the app.
Every of the six Austen books within the “First Impressions” collection, due out in March, will likely be launched by a well-liked YA romance novelist. Boyfriend Materials creator Alexis Corridor, who has written the foreword for Persuasion, describes Anne and Captain Wentworth as “legit freaking soulmates”, whereas creator of the Maple Hills collection Hannah Grace says of Sense and Sensibility’s Elinor: “I’d wager that her favorite Taylor Swift track can be This Is Me Making an attempt.”
Unsurprisingly, criticism of those covers has abounded on platforms comparable to X and Reddit – with social media customers claiming that “Tiktokifying” Austen was patronising youthful audiences. The Booker-nominated creator Brandon Taylor, whereas conceding that the concept may work in principle, mentioned that the execution was “bizarre” in a thread on X. “They turned Fanny Worth right into a Targaryen,” he mentioned of the Mansfield Park cowl, which options an illustration of a girl who bears a placing resemblance to Emilia Clarke’s character in Sport of Thrones.
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Past reaching untapped lovers of Austen’s work, these covers are more likely to have one other purpose: to satisfy new bookshelf aesthetic traits, to be purchased as an adjunct slightly than for studying. The as soon as clothbound, gold-embossed look has been eclipsed – at the least amongst younger BookTok readers – by one thing nearer to choose ‘n’ combine: neon colors and bubble, brush-lettered fonts with homogeneous paintings.
A want for modernised classics isn’t new (neither is shopping for them for show functions solely), however the discomfort round these covers speaks to what might really feel, to many, like an abrupt shift in what “modernisation” means in 2025. Alongside these covers, it’s also possible to discover a comparable therapy of classics elsewhere, comparable to in 2020 when the US retailer Barnes & Noble acquired backlash – and finally suspended – a collection of classics with racially swapped characters on the covers. Now we have seen a increase in peppy Austen movie variations, comparable to Dakota Johnson’s Persuasion (2022) and Anya Taylor-Pleasure’s Emma (2020) and there are even complete reworkings made to enchantment to the romance market, such because the “audio smut” firm, Bloom Tales, which has rewritten Delight and Prejudice to make it “spicy”.
The impetus, then, for these covers is smart. However will they really promote? Heather Slater, supervisor of Discussion board Books in Northumberland, is sceptical. She says she repeatedly sells Austen titles to younger readers searching for their “romance repair” however who’re wanting to develop past younger grownup romance novels. Nonetheless, whereas she believes Austen novels do have the tropes many romance readers search – “the gossiping of Emma, the determined romantic Marianne Dashwood, the basic enemies to lovers story of Mr Darcy and Elizabeth” – she thinks the brand new covers “body these novels in utterly the fallacious gentle”.
“They probably give an impression to those that don’t realise they’re really classics that they’ve been given a rework to a gift day setting,” she says.
“I believe it’s pure snobbery to criticise the design in itself, however I’d say that they’re a bit deceptive for readers – romance books with these forms of covers are a really completely different studying expertise from Delight and Prejudice,” says guide blogger Soniya Ganvir, one half of the influencer duo @browngirlsreadbooks. “It’s not going to be a spicy romance like Bridgerton so in the long run will it actually seize the viewers they’re aiming for?”
The brand new covers are “a little bit too apparent” says Jess White, the Liverpool-based author of the favored Substack Jess White Reads Books. She says she will be able to perceive Penguin’s want to succeed in audiences that aren’t studying classics with these new editions (which, in her opinion, “are literally actually hideous”) however thinks the transfer being so clearly a trend-driven gross sales seize will flip readers off.
“Pandering” to readers of latest romance “is a little bit determined”, she provides, “particularly as a result of there may be such a distinction between these sorts of texts and Austen … I’m not totally positive that Austen’s novels want a gross sales enhance as they’re all the time in print anyway, and have droves of readers.”
That is one thing Ganvir echoes: “A lot of wonderful work, particularly by girls and racialised minorities doesn’t get even a fraction of the advertising spend that can have gone into this rebrand … books that, whereas nice, are additionally outdated.”
However Caden Armstrong, the proprietor of the romance bookshop E book Lovers Bookshop in Edinburgh, is extra optimistic in regards to the rebrand. The store’s workers “are completely in love with these new editions”, they inform me. “They merge basic literature with a brand new vibrant and distinctive artwork model that we imagine will usher in a brand new wave of younger Jane Austen followers.”
Saber Kahn, who works for the unbiased bookshop chain Topping Books, doesn’t see something fallacious with the brand new covers. “I don’t imagine in gatekeeping of any kind and objecting to those appears like that and a bit treasured. Whereas the covers may look completely different, Jane’s voice hasn’t modified: all the time contemporary and vibrant to learn.”