Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Does anyone else enjoy reading books that borrow characters from Classic stories or continue their stories?

Examples:

Catherine: A Retelling of Wuthering Heights by Essie Fox

Havisham by Ronald Frame

Jack Dawkins by Charlton Daines

Tim Cratchit's Christmas Carol: The Sequel to the Celebrated Dickens Classic by Jim Piecuch

Jack Maggs by Peter Carey

Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin

I find I quite enjoy these stories, sometimes as much as the Classics themselves, and wondered if there were others?

There has been quite a few to The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Scarlett, a sequel to Gone With the Wind.

Huck Out West, a sequel to Huckleberry Finn.

Scrooge & Cratchit: A Sequel to 'A Christmas Carol', a sequel to A Christmas Carol

Dodge & Twist: A Sequel To Oliver Twist, a sequel to Oliver Twist.

There have been 5 or 6 novels added to the Hercule Poirot canon written by Sophie Hannah.

There are any number of novels written by a variety of authors about Sherlock Holmes.

I was going to mention two spinoffs of Wuthering Heights that I'm interested in:

Nelly Dean: A Return to Wuthering Heights
and
Emily's Ghost

Then I discovered there's an entire Goodreads list of Wuthering Heights reimaginings:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2...

I guess there is a ton of this kind of stuff out there!

I enjoyed the audacity and confidence of Nikos Kanzantzakis in axing the last book of The Odyssey and continuing the adventures of Odysseus in The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel.

The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz was a very good Sherlock Holmes reimagining in my opinion (I'm always interested in Sherlock Holmes stories that have been reinvented). There is also a follow up Moriarty to this.

I also know there are quite a few Shakespeare reboots, especially Hamlet and Mac Beth.

Squire wrote: "I enjoyed the audacity and confidence of Nikos Kanzantzakis in axing the last book of The Odyssey and continuing the adventures of Odysseus in The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel."

there's a whole literary world between the creative use of classics made by good authors on the one end and the (not-much-better-than-)fanfic wannabee-sequels on the other, with any degree of quality in-between. I try to avoid everything close to one end of the spectrum - guess which one.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1: Mina Harker, Captain Nemo, Dr. Jekyll, the Invisible Man, and others team up.

Wide Sargasso Sea is a prequel to Jane Eyre. Actually, I think we read it in the group some years ago

Sherlock Holmes have two lists of non-Conan Doyle books:
Best Sherlock Holmes Pastiches
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
and
Beyond Conan Doyle - Best of the Continuing Cases of Sherlock Holmes
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2880

There are hundred (if not thousand) of them

Cross over with other classics:
Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula
The Holmes-Dracula File
A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman (I can recommend)
A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

Also A Taste for Honey. Main character is called Mycroft, while it is Sherlock. I guess the book is so old that calling the character Sherlock Holmes could be a problem.

James Moriarty, Consulting Criminal by Andy Weir (The Martian)

Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships is surprisingly good sequel to H.G. Wells's Time Machine

J_BlueFlower wrote: "Sherlock Holmes have two lists of non-Conan Doyle books:
Best Sherlock Holmes Pastiches
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
and
Beyond Conan Doyle - Best of the Continuing Cases of Sherlock H..."

Mycroft Holmes is Sherlock's elder brother who I vaguely remember from "The Final Problem." He's also appeared in several other Holmes books. Here's the Wiki article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycroft...

Connie wrote: "Mycroft Holmes is Sherlock's elder brother who I vaguely remember from "The Final Problem."

Yes, he is in a few stories.

My point was: There is a character called Mycroft. It is not Sherlock's brother, but actually Sherlock himself.

J_BlueFlower wrote: "There has been quite a few to The Mystery of Edwin Drood"

Wasn't there one just called Drood?

Drood Yep. GR knows all! Have you read any good ones?

Mike wrote: "Scarlett, a sequel to Gone With the Wind.

Huck Out West, a sequel to Huckleberry Finn.

Scrooge & Cratchit: A Sequel to 'A Christmas Carol', a sequel to..."

I'd forgotten about Scarlett!

I read a different sequel to Huck Finn, James.

Darren wrote: "Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships is surprisingly good sequel to H.G. Wells's Time Machine"

Ooooh, I didn't know about this one!

sabagrey wrote: "
there's a whole literary world between the creative use of classics made by good authors on the one end and the (not-much-better-than-)fanfic wannabee-sequels on the other, with any degree of quality in-between. I try to avoid everything close to one end of the spectrum - guess which one."

I know what you mean. I've read 14 books about the Artful Dodger. Only two were good: Jack Dawkins by Charlton Daines and Dodger by James Benmore.

Darren wrote: "Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships is surprisingly good sequel to H.G. Wells's Time Machine"

This one looks so interesting. Thanks for the heads up on this Darren!

Bethan wrote: "J_BlueFlower wrote: "There has been quite a few to The Mystery of Edwin Drood"

Wasn't there one just called Drood?

Drood Yep. GR knows all! Have you read any good ones?"

Wikipedia:
Continuations

Supplying a conclusion to The Mystery of Edwin Drood has occupied writers from Dickens's death to the present day. The first three attempts to complete the story were undertaken by Americans. The first, by Robert Henry Newell, published under the pen name Orpheus C. Kerr in 1870,[10] was as much a parody as a continuation, transplanting the story to the United States. It is a "burlesque" farce rather than a serious attempt to continue in the spirit of the original story.

The second ending was written by Henry Morford, a New York journalist. He travelled to Rochester with his wife and published the ending serially during his stay in England from 1871 to 1872. In this ending, Edwin Drood survives Jasper's murder attempt. Datchery is Bazzard in disguise, but Helena disguises herself as well to overhear Jasper's mumbling under the influence of opium. It was titled John Jasper's Secret: Sequel to Charles Dickens' Mystery of Edwin Drood. Newspaper articles from 1870 confirmed that the story would be completed and authored by Charles Dickens, Jr and Wilkie Collins, despite Collins's disavowal. The illustrative green cover for the book was designed by Charles Allston Collins,[11] who was Charles Dickens's son-in-law and Wilkie Collins's brother.[12][13]

The third attempt was perhaps the most unusual. In 1873, a Brattleboro, Vermont, printer, Thomas Power James, published a version which he claimed had been literally 'ghost-written' by him channelling Dickens's spirit.[14][15][16] A sensation was created: several critics praised this version, including Arthur Conan Doyle, himself a spiritualist, who said it was similar in style to Dickens's work; and for several decades the James version of Edwin Drood was common in America. Other Drood scholars disagree. John C. Walters dismissed it with contempt, stating that the work "is self-condemned by its futility, illiteracy, and hideous American mannerisms; the mystery itself becomes a nightmare, and the solution only deepens the obscurity."[17]

Four of the most recent of the posthumous collaborations are The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Leon Garfield (1980), The Decoding of Edwin Drood (1980) by Charles Forsyte, The Disappearance of Edwin Drood, a Holmesian pastiche by Peter Rowland (1992), and The Mystery of Edwin Drood by David Madden (2011).[18] The D Case (1989) offered a humorous literary critique by the Italian duo Fruttero & Lucentini.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mys...

I read Sherlock Holmes løser Edwin Drood gaaden by Henry Lauritzen. I do not remember anything

I rather liked Drood, even though it had lukewarm reviews. Dickens and Collins in the same book.

Interesting history on the Wikipedia quote.

I've read all of Dickens' books at least once, but I have trouble remembering the details of this one.

Darren wrote: "Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships is surprisingly good sequel to H.G. Wells's Time Machine"

I would second this recommendation for fans of the original. Be warned: it's LONG and it drags a little in the early goings. But it incorporates many different time travel ideas and other Science-Fiction concepts and ties them all back to Wells' original story in interesting ways. There are also some Easter Eggs for fans of Wells' work.

Baxter also wrote a sequel to War of the Worlds that I haven't read.


The Massacre of Mankind by Stephen Baxter

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "Darren wrote: "Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships is surprisingly good sequel to H.G. Wells's Time Machine"

I would second this recommendation for fans of the original. Be warned: it's L..."

RJ, thanks for the heads up on the Baxter's sequel to War of the Worlds! I didn't know about that one, either.

I call these things Unquels, pronounced Uncles :) . I have quite a few on my to-do list and have read quite a few already.
There's a utopia book called Looking Backward by Edward Belamy that has numerous retorts and associated works, i've read quite a few.

Frankenstein Unbound was an insane mess but interestingly insane.
War of the Wenuses is a parody that came out only weeks/months after War of the Worlds. Very silly stuff.

The Mad King by Burroughs is a rewrite of Prisoner of Zenda and Zorro is a rewrite/plagiarised version of The Scarlett Pimpernel.

I've read two sequels to the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. An Antartic Mystery by Jules Verne and A Strange Discovery by Charles Romyn Dake.

The Frankenstein Wheel, Circe, also Circes Island, 1985, another book called 1985: What happens when big brother dies, Foe by Coetzee, The Penelopiad, Mary Reilly and Grendel on my to-do list.

This is a great thread, because it's often hard to tell if these remakes will be any good.

I'm really excited to add Mary Reilly and The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, and am intrigued by 1985: What Happens After Big Brother Dies.

I loved The Penelopiad--a great example of fleshing out the original story.

There's Rebecca's Tale which tells the story from Rebecca's perspective in Rebecca. And Susan Hill wrote Mrs de Winter which continues the story from the original, set about a decade later.

The 1905 Swedish classic by Hjalmar Söderberg, Doctor Glas, has inspired three offshoots: Bengt Ohlsson’s Gregorius, Dannie Abse’s The Strange Case of Dr. Simmonds and Dr. Glas, and Malin Lindroth’s En annan doktor Glas. The original is a truly great novel which I highly recommend.

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "Darren wrote: "Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships is surprisingly good sequel to H.G. Wells's Time Machine"

I would second this recommendation for fans of the original. Be warned: it's L..."

I haven't read this, though it's on my tbr. I think I'll bump it higher!

Kathleen wrote: "This is a great thread, because it's often hard to tell if these remakes will be any good.
"

True! I read two about Tiny Tim from A Christmas Carol. One was reasonably good, the other, not so much.

I've also read 14 stories about the Artful Dodger (he's popular), and only really rate two of them as good.

Carolien wrote: "There's Rebecca's Tale which tells the story from Rebecca's perspective in Rebecca. And Susan Hill wrote Mrs de Winter which continues the s..."

I didn't know about these either! I have some catching up to do.