sovay: (0)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote 2006-12-07 03:42 am (UTC)

Characters from Victorian novels have been lifted again and again -- and dare I even touch upon the numerous "sequels" to Pride and Prejudice?

Whatever this says about me, the first recent character who came to mind was Lord Peter Wimsey, who makes a cameo appearance in Laurie R. King's A Letter of Mary (1997; itself a novel about Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell). He doesn't date back farther than 1923 (Whose Body?), but he seems to have assimilated into that whole mythscape of late nineteenth / early twentieth century mysteries. And now Jill Paton Walsh has written two more mysteries about him and Harriet. They are based respectively on Sayers' notes and her wartime Wimsey Papers, but I still think it's safe to say that he's achieved archetype.

There's also an entire novel about Sydney Carton, but I find that I have no desire to read it. If I want someone else's vision of the character, I'll stick with Ronald Colman, thank you very much. : )

Or "The Chronicles of Narnia", as far as I can remember, except one short story in Neil Gaiman's "Fragile Things"...

"The Problem of Susan?" (It's been copied down at the bottom of the page.) That's all I've seen for published retellings, too. I have no idea what exists in the way of fanfic.

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