Buzz
Many iconic literary works have not only captivated readers but also led to follow-up stories. However, unlike series such as Harry Potter, where the same author typically pens all the books, some sequels were crafted by entirely different writers. Explore sequels to classics like Gone with the Wind and Pride and Prejudice, which were continued by new voices, offering fresh takes on timeless tales.
1. Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen’s masterpiece has inspired numerous sequels and adaptations, but P.D. James’s Death Comes to Pemberley stands out. This gripping mystery shifts the focus to a murder at Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy’s estate, with the infamous Mr. Wickham emerging as the main suspect.
2. Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Never Grew Up
J.M. Barrie bequeathed the rights to his works, including the 1911 classic Peter Pan, to London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital. In 2004, the hospital organized a contest to create an official sequel, won by Geraldine McCaughrean for her novel, Peter Pan in Scarlet. Set in 1926, the story revisits Peter Pan, the Darling family, and the Lost Boys. Captain Hook, having survived the crocodile, returns with sinister intentions, leaving Pan and Hook locked in their eternal rivalry in Neverland.
3. Gone with the Wind
Among the four sequels to Margaret Mitchell’s epic Civil War tale, Scarlett, penned by Alexandra Ripley, stands out as the most eccentric. Scarlett faces Mammy’s passing, a shipwreck leading to a cave encounter, and a journey back to her heritage as she relocates to Ireland to restore the ancestral home, Ballyhara.
4. The Godfather
In 2004, Mark Winegardner authored The Godfather Returns, continuing the story right where The Godfather concluded, with the events of The Godfather: Part II serving as its backdrop. Two years later, he released The Godfather’s Revenge. Similar to the first book’s Johnny Fontaine, who mirrored Frank Sinatra, Winegardner’s works include characters inspired by Joseph, John, and Robert Kennedy.
5. Rebecca
Susan Hill’s Mrs. De Winter revisits the unnamed narrator from Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, who returns to England with her husband a decade after Manderley’s destruction. The couple remains haunted by Rebecca’s lingering influence and faces new threats from a vengeful Mrs. Danvers, proving that some shadows never fade.
6. The James Bond series
Much like his cinematic counterpart, Ian Fleming’s iconic spy remains timeless, evolving with the era’s technology and weaponry. Since Fleming’s passing in 1964, seven authors, from literary giant Kingsley Amis to contemporary novelist William Boyd, have penned authorized sequels, keeping the legacy alive.
7. Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë’s sole novel receives a sequel as intricate as the original in Nicola Thorne’s Return to Wuthering Heights. The story follows Catherine’s nephew Hareton and her daughter Cathy as they marry, only to face turmoil with the arrival of Heathcliff’s hidden son, leading to a cascade of romantic and dramatic conflicts.
8. The Boxcar Children
Gertrude Chandler Warner introduced the Boxcar Children in 1924, penning the first of 19 books about four orphaned siblings who create a home from an abandoned boxcar in the woods. After being adopted by their grandfather, he relocates the boxcar to his estate for their enjoyment. The series has since expanded to over 150 books, with two new installments slated for release next year. While the original stories were set in the 1920s and '30s, modern entries reflect contemporary times.
9. The Foundation Series
Isaac Asimov authored the Hugo Award-winning Foundation trilogy, chronicling the rise and fall of two empires separated by a millennium. He later extended the series with four additional books, integrating it with the Robot and Empire series. After Asimov’s death in 1992, seven more novels by other writers expanded the timeline of the original series by over 20,000 years.
10. The Catcher in the Rye
The Salinger Trust disapproved of Frederik Colting’s sequel to the iconic novel about teenage turmoil. In 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, an elderly “Mr. C.” flees a nursing home to revisit his youthful stomping grounds in Manhattan. The book remains banned in the U.S. and Canada until the copyright on The Catcher in the Rye expires.
11. Flowers in the Attic
V.C. Andrews is renowned for the 1979 Gothic horror novel Flowers in the Attic, where four siblings are confined by their mother in their grandfather’s mansion, hidden in a bedroom connected to a vast attic. The book gained infamy for its controversial subplot and became the first in the Dollanganger family saga, which includes four more books. Although Andrews is credited as the author, she died in 1986, and the final installment, 1987’s Garden of Shadows, was penned by ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman based on her outline. Neiderman later wrote over 80 books under Andrews’s name.
