The Art of the Gothic Retelling
There’s something about the genre that invites reinvention, a way of pulling old ghosts into new light.
I felt that pull when writing Mademoiselle Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been told and retold in countless ways, but I wanted to go deeper—not just to revisit the tale, but to reimagine its very foundation. What if the creator was not Victor Frankenstein, but a woman? What if the story unfolded during a war in a just-born country? What if the act of creation was not just a scientific experiment, but a deeply emotional, almost spiritual act—one rooted in grief, longing, and the desperate attempt to defy fate?
Retelling a Gothic novel isn’t just about changing names and settings. It’s about capturing the genre’s essence—its obsession with the past, its entanglement with death, its suffocating sense of inevitability—and filtering it through a new lens. The best retellings don’t just mimic their predecessors; they hold them up to a cracked mirror, revealing new angles, new questions, and new horrors.
Some of the most fascinating retellings take Gothic classics and rework them into new forms while keeping their dark hearts intact:
Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea – A prequel to Jane Eyre, this novel tells the story of Bertha Mason, the so-called “madwoman in the attic.” Instead of being a shadowy, doomed figure, she becomes a fully realized character, her descent into madness shaped by colonialism, trauma, and the erasure of her identity.
Sarah Perry’s Melmoth – A reimagining of Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer, this novel transforms the tale into a chilling, modern Gothic about guilt and historical hauntings.
Valerie Martin’s Mary Reilly – Retells Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde through the unique perspective of Dr. Jekyll’s housemaid.
Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber – A collection of lush, macabre fairy tale retellings, including a Gothic reinvention of the Bluebeard story, where the heroine’s fate isn’t so easily sealed.
Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock – Though not a direct retelling, it channels the Gothic tradition of eerie disappearances and the weight of an inescapable past, much like The Turn of the Screw.
Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom – A subversive response to H.P. Lovecraft’s The Horror at Red Hook, reframing the story from the perspective of a Black protagonist, exposing the racism underlying Lovecraft’s original tale while still embracing cosmic horror.
Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca – While not technically a retelling, Rebecca is a Gothic reworking of Jane Eyre, where the second wife of Maxim de Winter is haunted—literally and psychologically—by the presence of the first, the enigmatic and doomed Rebecca.
There’s a reason Gothic novels continue to be reborn in new forms. Their themes—death, love, power, and the inescapable grip of the past—never lose their relevance. A great Gothic retelling doesn’t replace the original; it converses with it, challenges it, and ultimately ensures that its ghosts will never rest.
What is your favorite Gothic retelling?
