Jane Eyre and other classics to get Fifty Shades of Grey erotic treatment

The Classics Exposed version of Jane Eyre includes "explosive sex" involving main characters Jane and Mr. Rochester. (Clandestine Classics) Aiming to capitalize on the red-hot popularity of erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey, Clandestine Classics is releasing a series of erotically charged versions of 19th century literature.

Clandestine, an imprint of Total E-Bound Publishing, will release the first series of the Classics Exposed series online starting July 30.

The series includes new versions of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet from the Sherlock Holmes series.

"The old fashioned pleasantries and timidity have all been stripped away, quite literally. You didn't really think that these much loved characters only held hands and pecked cheeks did you?" says Clandestine Classics in the introduction to this series.

The new versions re-write the classic stories "with scorching passion" including love scenes that didn't exist in the original versions. In the reworked Jane Eyre, the titular protagonist has "explosive sex with Mr. Rochester," according to The Independent.

In Pride and Prejudice, the relationship between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett is fast-forwarded by "heated glances" between the two. "Electrifying sexual tension soon leads to an unexpected kiss and Elizabeth's world is turned upside down," according to the book's preview.

And in A Study in Scarlet, Doctor Watson soon falls in love with the amateur detective Sherlock Holmes soon after the two meet and share boarding.

"We're not rewriting the classics," Total E-Bound's founder Claire Siemaszkiewicz told The Independent. "But we want to enhance the novels by adding the 'missing' scenes for readers to enjoy.

"I've often wondered whether the Bronte sisters, if they were alive today, would have gone down the erotic romance route," she continues. "There's a lot of underlying sexual tension in their stories."

But others were quick to criticize the conversion of 19th century classic literature into the "mommy porn" genre, calling it a blatant cash-in on the popularity of the Fifty Shades trilogy and similar novels.

"Perhaps it hasn't occurred to Siemaszkiewicz that the sexual tension is 'underlying' for a reason," writes Huffington Post UK's Sam Parker, "and that Emily Bronte decided not to have Catherine and Heathcliff [in Wuthering Heights] ravish each other in a pile of hay for reasons of craft, rather than simply because she was living through less enlightened times than ours."

What do you think of these new "mommy porn" versions of classic literature? Will they introduce the 19th century canon to a new audience, or is it a cheap cash-in to capitalize on the Fifty Shades craze?


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