A Successful Novel Must Be in Want of a Sequel

What happened after Mr. Darcy married Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice? Where did Heathcliff go when he disappeared in Wuthering Heights? What social ostracism would Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter have faced in 20th century America? Great novels often leave behind great questions, and sequels seek to answer them. This critical analysis offers fresh insights into the sequels to seven literary classics, including Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, the Brontë sisters’ Jane Eyre, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.

M. Carmen Gómez-Galisteo’s work has appeared in Ad Americam, Contemporary Legend, Americana, Clepsydra, RAEI, The Grove, and NeoAmericanist, among other publications. She currently teaches at UNED, Universidad Isabel I and Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (Madrid, Spain).

M. Carmen Gomez-Galisteo

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 206
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2018
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7282-3
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3327-5
Imprint: McFarland

Introduction: Once or Twice Upon a Time 1

1. Dear Elinor, Dear Marianne: ­Letter-Writing, Marriage Prospects and Women’s Roles in Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen and Elinor and Marianne by Emma Tennant 15
2. Looking for Mr. Right Darcy: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and Its Multiple Rewritings 40
3. The Madwoman in the Attic and Other Family Secrets: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys and The French Dancer’s Bastard by Emma Tennant 66
4. Beyond Wuthering Heights: Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Windward Heights by Maryse Condé and Heathcliff: The Return to Wuthering Heights by Lin ­Haire-Sargeant 78
5. “In a Land Where Inequity Is Searched Out, and Punished in the Sight of Rulers and People”: Adultery, Religion and Women’s Roles in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and John Updike’s “The Scarlet Letter Trilogy” 95
6. The Proud Father of Four Little Women: Womanhood, Patriarchy and the Civil War in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and March by Geraldine Brooks 115
7. Last Night I Dreamt I Saw Rebecca Again: Lesbianism, Female Sexuality and Motherhood in Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, Mrs. de Winter by Susan Hill and Rebecca’s Tale by Sally Beauman 130

Conclusion: The End? 153
Chapter Notes 161
Bibliography 183
Index 195