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Who has read retold versions of old books/classics?

I read Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice earlier this month and it’s started me on a frenzy for reading older dark gothic books and classics. I’m reading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture Of Dorian Gray right now and I got Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein today at the library and I’ve got Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat on audiobook! XD anyway these books are taking me longer to read than usual because of the old and complex language but I saw online that there is a Frankenstein book retold by John Grant…does that mean simplified or in modern day English? Or just based on the original book like movies? Has anyone read retold classics and how do they compare to the original? Are they worth it??

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Answer #1

If they are retold they are subject to changes. For example to modernize a book you would need to edit anything that doesnt fit into today’s society like carriages (would now be cars/taxis), letter writing (internet, mobile phones). If simple things like that are changed throughout the book then they will eventually add up and may affect the true essence of a story. I dont mind retold stories but I do like to compare them with the originals and in my opinion are never quite as good. Once you have read a few you get used to it. Its good to flex your internal dictionary muscle sometimes.

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