Traditional zombie narratives in film and fiction are quick to get to the apocalypse.

In a sense, the author of this pastiche, Seth Grahame-Smith, has turned Jane Austen into a zombie, reviving her text from the grave and turning it into a grisly version of the original.

And zombies have clawed their way to the top of book best-seller lists in the last decade with literature ranging from how-to survival manuals to reinterpretations of early Victorian fiction.