Frankenstein Retold

Daniel Cook is Associate Dean and Reader in English Literature at the University of Dundee, UK. He is the author of Walter Scott and Short Fiction (2021), Reading Swift’s Poetry (2020), and Thomas Chatterton and Neglected Genius, 1760-1830 (2013). His most recent books include The Cambridge Companion to Gulliver's Travels, with Nicholas Seager (2023), Gulliver’s Travels: The Norton Library (2023), Scottish Poetry, 1730-1830 (2023), and Austen After 200: New Reading Spaces, with Annika Bautz and Kerry Sinanan (2022).

• PrefaceIntroductionNew and Hybrid SpeciesRetelling Tales in Theory and Practice Frankensteinian Retellings Frankenstein Retold: A User’s GuideChapter 1. New BeginningsThe Answering Novel: Frankenstein UnboundThe Teller and the Tale: FrankisssteinChapter 2. The Literary RedoThe Strange CasebookThe Turning Pages: A Monster’s NotesWhen a Monster Calls: Monster and The Frankenstein PapersChapter 3. Sequels and Prequels The Frankenstein Sequel Becoming VictorChapter 4. Brides RevisitedHalf-Finished BridesSurvivors: Pandora’s Bride and Born of the SeaChapter 5. Orcadian CoquelsThe Bride-to-be: The Monster’s WifeThe Restless Bride of EynhallowChapter 6. Patchwork ThingsThe Twice-Told Tale: Poor ThingsM/S: Patchwork GirlChapter 7. Old EndingsThe Under-Story of Elizabeth Frankenstein Unnatural WomenFrankenstein’s DaughtersAfterword: The Modern Deucalion BibliographyIndex

Set against a marching hoard of Frankenstein scholarship that tends to focus disproportionately on Shelley’s cinematic afterlives, this book makes a fresh intervention by considering the literary, book-based adaptations that animate the enduring myth of Frankenstein. Treating Frankenstein as a “foundational allegory of Gothic authorship,” this book provides a formal analysis and taxonomy of the exciting and at times monstrous literary experiments that unfold and feed into one another as contemporary authors rewrite and reassemble Shelley’s “hideous progeny.” Original and compelling, this is a must-read for scholars interested in Shelley or the Gothic, or in how literature continues to reinvent itself.