Did you read [Jane Eyre] before or after [The Eyre Affair]?

I'm just wondering if people read Jane Eyre before or after (or even at all!) you read The Eyre Affair....

I read it long before. I do think it helped me appreciate the plot twists, but it had been long enough that I didn't remember specifics.

I read it before. It had been a few years, but it definitely helped me appreciate The Eyre Affair much more.

I heard about The Eyre Affair and was interesting in reading it a couple years before I even read Jane Eyre. However, I was lucky enough to not get around to Jasper Fforde's books until after I'd read Jane Eyre.

I still haven't read Jane Eyre, though it's in my home library. I saw a movie adaptation and didn't like it, but I absolutely loved The Eyre Affair and ended up reading the ending of Jane Eyre a few times during my reading of The Eyre Affair.

I read Jane Eyre before The Eyre Affair, and am glad I did. I think Fforde's book contains too much of Bronte's plot to avoid spoilerdom. (Wasn't there a summary of the "new" ending?)

I had read Jane Eyre in high school, so I was familiar with the story but not the details of the plot when I read The Eyre Affair. I then re-read JE and kept imagining Thursday Next lurking in the background :)

I read The Eyre Affair first and picked up Jane Eyre later to get the complete story ;). It didn't bother me when reading Eyre Affair that I didn't know the original, neither about the "spoiled" ending when I finally came round to reading Jane Eyre :)

ditto #8. the eyre affair inspired me to go and read the original jane, but I wasn't too impressed. I haven't yet bothered to read the rest of the classics that the sequels are 'based' on. I will someday. I know I'm missign some of the jokes, but I miss many of them anyway so what's a few more? there are so many that fforde's books are still totally hilarious.

I actually haven't read Jane Eyre or any of the others the books are 'based' on yet.

I read Jane Eyre a few weeks before reading Eyre Affair and I was glad that I did. I had heard much about Jane Eyre over the years so the overall plot wasn't a surprise to me....but I think that Eyre Affair just gives way too much detail away.

I did enjoy imagining that Thursday was in the background of JE though. It seemed plausible while reading EA. I also like the little added continuation of the story of Jane and Mr Rochester that was added in EA. I always like to know what might have happened to certain characters after the official story ends.

I actually read the third book in the Thursday Next series first (we had an advance reading copy at work). I immediately decided I had to buy the series so I bought the first two and a copy of Jane Eyre. I was very restrained and made sure I read Jane Eyre first and I'm glad I did. I absolutely loved the book and as it was one I had been intending to read for quite some time it wasn't too hard for me to finish it quickly and get started on the Jasper Fforde books. I've read some of the other books mentioned in the Thursday Next series (Great Expectations, Alice in Wonderland etc) but not all of them. Hopefully it just means that as my reading broadens I'll get even more of the references every time I re-read the series. I must say though that I can never look at Wuthering Heights the same way again after reading the WH anger management class scene...classic. I never liked WH anyway and I've always enjoyed a good parody.

>12 dreamlikecheese:
The Wuthering Heights anger management is probably my favorite scene in the series - along with Richard III as a Rocky-Horror show. Those are the scenes I always bring up when I'm trying to convince other people to read these. I figure if that won't convince them (well, that and the grammasites), then they're beyond hope...

I had read Jane first, and I burst out laughing when I read how it ended with Jane going off with "Sinjin" (I always think of Rowan Atkinson as the minister trying to pronounce that), because that told me that Thursday was going to change it to what we think of as the "real" ending. But is it? I've heard The Eyre Affair referred to as "fiction," but I'm pretty sure I heard on the BBC that it was true!

I read Jane Eyre first, as well as Wuthering Heights.

I read Jane Eyre after I read The Eyre Affair. Whenever I told my women friends that I was reading Jane Eyre they all said how much they enjoyed reading it. I enjoyed reading it too.

I read Jane Eyre a year or two before reading The Eyre Affair and I was glad I had read it, given its centrality to the plot of the book. I loved how there was an alternate ending to Jane Eyre as "originally" written in Fforde's book & how Thursday changed things to the present case. Such an inventive novel - so glad I was introduced to this series through LT!

I just watched a PBS adaptation of Jane Eyre & the whole time all I could think of was Thursday's hidden hand, working behind the scenes to make everything work out ok! :)