Continuations and Adaptations

Abstract

CHAPTER 44 Continuations and Adaptations Daniel Cook'A Book is the Author's Property', Defoe writes in the Review. 'But behold in this Christian Nation', he continues, 'these Children of our Heads are seiz'd, captivated, spirited away, and carry'd into Captivity, and there is none to redeem them'. 1 Defoe nevertheless indulged in the ancient art of unofficial continuation with A Continuation of Letters Written by a Turkish Spy at Paris (1718), an extension of a popular series originally printed in France under the title L'espion du Grand-Seigneur and in England as Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy (1687). He extended his own property too. The Family Instructor (1715) gained a further volume in 1718. The New Family Instructor (1727) appeared less than a decade later. His most notable continuation followed Robinson Crusoe shortly after the first book's publication: The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (both 1719). Sometimes those two volumes are grouped with a third, Serious Reflections (1720), a medley of in-character essays rather than a conventional narrative, an expansion rather than a sequel.Adaptations and continuations come in different shapes and sizes. Some come in book form, though not all are novels -there are comics, poems, and much more besides. Some rework material for the stage, screen or other transmedia outlets. Some will appear under a new name, that of the adapter or sequelist, but some will be authentic-seeming plagiarisms. Then there are abridgements, which are typically published under the original author's name or nom de plume, with little acknowledgement of the abridger's labour. Robinson Crusoe abridgements followed within weeks of the original book's first appearance in the marketplace; according to Eve Tavor 2 Bannet there were at least 136 such publications in English alone, plus thirty-nine American ones published between 1774 and 1800. 2 (The abridgers hijacked Crusoe's own logic as he refers to his memory of events as an 'Abridgement' of 'the whole History of My Life in Miniature'.) 3 Favouring pseudonymous publication, Defoe was especially susceptible to what Gerard Genette calls 'murderous continuations', which seek to erase the original by quietly abridging, expanding or otherwise rewriting earlier editions. 4 Defoe was not alone in defending his property from spurious sequelists. 5 In the Second Part of Don Quixote of La Mancha (1615) Cervantes disavowed 'another Don Quixote who, under the name of The Second Part, has run masquerading through the whole world'. John Bunyan introduces his sequel to The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) with a warning that 'some have of late, to Counterfeit / My pilgrim, to their own, my Title set'. Samuel Richardson rushed out another two volumes for Pamela (1740) as 'my Characters were likely to be debased' by others. 6 In his Crusoe continuation Defoe blasts 'The Injury these Men do the Proprietor of this Work […] Robbing on the Highway, or Breaking open a House'. 7 Questions about literary property or paternity rights (the main metaphors used in eighte...