All Things Considered, March 29, 2009 · Beware on your next trip to the bookstore — zombies have invaded a classic. The living dead have come to Longbourn, the land of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Author — make that co-author — Seth Grahame-Smith altered Jane Austen's original text ever so slightly to accommodate brand new scenes of the Bennet girls forming "The Pentagram of Death" and taking on hordes of the undead, along with a ninja or two.

Grahame-Smith talks to Jacki Lyden about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.




Excerpt: 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies'

by Seth Grahame-Smith

As Mr. Darcy walked off, Elizabeth felt her blood turn cold. She had never in her life been so insulted. The warrior code demanded she avenge her honour. Elizabeth reached down to her ankle, taking care not to draw attention. There, her hand met the dagger concealed beneath her dress. She meant to follow this proud Mr. Darcy outside and open his throat.

But no sooner had she grabbed the handle of her weapon than a chorus of screams filled the assembly hall, immediately joined by the shattering of window panes. Unmentionables poured in, their movements clumsy yet swift; their burial clothing in a range of untidiness. Some wore gowns so tattered as to render them scandalous; other wore suits so filthy that one would assume they were assembled from little more than dirt and dried blood. Their flesh was in varying degrees of putrefaction; the freshly stricken were slightly green and pliant, whereas the longer dead were grey and brittle – their eyes and tongues long since turned to dust, and their lips pulled back into everlasting skeletal smiles.

A few of the guests, who had the misfortune of being too near the windows, were seized and feasted on at once. When Elizabeth stood, she saw Mrs. Long struggle to free herself as two female dreadfuls bit into her head, cracking her skull like a walnut, and sending a shower of dark blood spouting as high as the chandeliers.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance — Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!
by Seth Grahame-Smith
Paperback, 320 pages
Quirk Books
List Price $12.95