Fan Fiction and Authorship. Secondary Authors and Their Role in the Evolution of the Author Construct and Canonicity

Abstract

This thesis explores the author role as a complex construct in relation to the notion of canonicity, investigating the relationship between authors, their original works, fan authors and fan authors’ works of fan fiction. Four major works have been chosen for analysis, Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study In Scarlet (1887), J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007), Anthony Horowitz’ The House of Silk (2011) and an online work of fan fiction by “gyzym” called What We Pretend We Can’t See (2017). Through the analysis of two original works and works of fan fiction derived from each, as well as the author role, copyright concerns, and the challenges of defining canonicity, this thesis seeks to show that fan fiction is productive and useful for the core text, and that secondary authors have the capacity to produce texts that can qualify as canonical to the original works according to certain criteria.