Reception history of Jane Austen Critic" felt that Austen's exclusive dependence on realism was evidence of a deficient imagination. The reviewer for the "Edinburgh Review" disagreed, praising Austen for her "exhaustless invention" and the combination of the familiar and the surprising in her plots. Overall, Austen scholars have pointed out that these early reviewers did not know what to make of her novels—for example, they misunderstood her use of irony. Reviewers reduced "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice" to didactic tales of virtue prevailing over vice. In the "Quarterly Review" in 1821, the English writer and theologian Richard Whately published the most serious and
Jane Austen fan fiction hundred sequels, rewritings, and continuations of her novels had been published. "Pride and Prejudice" accounted for the majority of published Austen-inspired books, at 900 total, and all six novels and three minor works are represented in published Jane Austen fan fiction (JAFF). The number of unpublished Austen-inspired stories on various JAFF sites at least doubles that number. They have continued to remain popular well into the 21st century, with modern adaptations reaching as high as third on The New York Times Best Seller List However, opinions remain mixed in regard to the liberties taken by authors when modifying or adding