Start with the basics: there is a world of difference between Mary Shelley’s original 1818 novel Frankenstein and the countless films that have been inspired by it. Even Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 adaptation, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, adds much to Shelley’s original vision and in doing so takes much away. Its title […]
Other News
Peter Pan in Neverland
In which book did Peter Pan first appear, and what was the target readership of the book? Peter Pan, the play for children? Think again. The boy who wouldn’t grow up first appeared, ironically, in a book for adults, a little-known 1902 novel called The Little White Bird. However, it […]
Literature and Sex
In one sense, ‘sex’ didn’t exist until 1899, when H. G. Wells first used it in his novel Love and Mr Lewisham as an abbreviation for ‘sexual intercourse’ (and Wells would know: his string of lovers was long and illustrious, including the feminist writer Rebecca West and the modernist pioneer Dorothy […]
Origins of Gothic Literature
The 1760s was the decade of literary forgeries. One of the most famous forgeries which that decade produced, Horace Walpole’s 1764 book The Castle of Otranto, was responsible for founding the Gothic novel genre. Walpole, who was the son of the first de facto Prime Minister of Britain, Robert Walpole, […]