Introduction
Keyword(s):
The Introduction raises the main questions answered by the book: how were characters regulated before the existence of intellectual property laws? Why does fan fiction proliferate after 1750? And how did fan fiction and its rules affect authorship and the law? It further provides a brief history of fan fiction from Homer to Goethe and offers an explanation of the methodology used in this text, combining legal anthropology, literary criticism, and historical analysis based on archival work. The Introduction places the work within existing scholarship on legal history, studies of eighteenth-century literature and the book trade, and intellectual property law.