Literary Twitter is all in a tizzy, and we couldn't be more delighted, because the burns are piping hot, and the subject of the controversy is novelist extraordinaire Jane Austen.

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On Friday, the Washington Post ran an essay about the fact that Jane Austen never married, despite the fact that marriage and courtship were her main subjects in books like Pride and Prejudice and Emma. But the ~scandal~ really got going after the Post tweeted out the piece on Sunday.

Jane Austen was the master of the marriage plot. But she remained single. https://t.co/BwBp51el8U — Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 18, 2017

Based on a cache of journals and letters, the author represents Austen as a woebegone "spinster" who somehow managed to write classics about love despite lacking experience in marriage herself. But as Twitter users pointed out, a writer does not need first-hand knowledge of a subject to write about it masterfully.

"Mary Shelley invented science fiction. But she never made a human out of dead body parts." https://t.co/0M6gLsHI8S — 🇰🇷Heautontimoroumenos🇩🇪 (@paulengelhard) December 18, 2017

you'd be amazed at how many crime writers have never even murdered ONE person. https://t.co/pYwW3f6qZg — Gavia Baker-Whitelaw (@Hello_Tailor) December 18, 2017

There’s a genuine Thing I’ve noticed where people have difficulty believing women can write fiction that isn’t autobiographical. — Emma Dibdin (@emmdib) December 18, 2017

Fantasy and science fiction writers really took the objection to the next level, by applying the article's observation — that Austen did not write about what she experienced — to their own slightly more out-of-this-world work.

I have never flown in a spacecraft, fired a gun (other than an air rifle), fought in a cage, pulled off a big-money heist, lived through a city-wide revolution or accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb near Amsterdam, AND YET... https://t.co/rTPlXa47nS — Mike Brooks (@MikeBrooks668) December 18, 2017

I have never soul-bonded with a mountain and controlled a giant stone mech, AND YET... https://t.co/UBdubJ3cpu — Jen 'Don't let the bells end' Williams (@sennydreadful) December 18, 2017

I have admittedly tried to evangelise to inhuman forces and play puppet master to their woes but it was at a Live Roleplaying Game so I don't think it really counts. https://t.co/2t7TqRDm8K — Jeannette Ng 吳志麗 (@jeannette_ng) December 18, 2017

I have never rescued my nephew from slavers, ridden in the consciousness of a god, murdered my commanding officer, cracked a hole in the fabric of the world or had a fistfight in a graveyard, AND YET.... https://t.co/K7wSy8cxOS — Joanne Hall (@hierath77) December 18, 2017

Others pointed out that, given Austen's life and work, she might not have felt *quite* the despair at being unmarried that the Post's author suggests.

What are men to rocks and mountains? -Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice #amreading — Merrie Housdon (@mehousdon) December 18, 2017

If anything, Jane Austen could probably see the trees a bit better for not being in the forest.

Really, @washingtonpost - as clickbait goes, this is poorly done. #JaneAusten https://t.co/foTth5Bmi3 — Stratton Gray (@StrattonGray) December 18, 2017

Jane Austen, Emily Brönte, Louise May Alcott - all unmarried.



Huh. It’s almost as if women who can support themselves don’t cater to societal pressures to find a man. — CaitlinCarrigan (@CaitlinCarrigan) December 18, 2017

And then there were the straight-up literary burns.

Writer appears to miss the fact that Jane Austen’s work is satire, perhaps the greatest ever penned https://t.co/NsZlp1fEHD — Laura Jean 🐻 (@lauraincapetown) December 18, 2017

Incorrect. Jane Austen was the mistress of the seduction plot. She wrote little about the plot of marriages. https://t.co/rIgswmBiA4 — Amanda Brown (@AudioAmanda) December 18, 2017

Woe to the person who dares f*ck with Jane Austen fans on Twitter.