What are some popular public domain novels that an enterprising writer could write a really good sequel or prequel to? What famous characters do you want to know more about?
Well, one obvious character from public domain times that could get further adventures is Sherlock Holmes. In fact, there are already an immense number of such books. I could show you a list of almost two hundred of them.
There’s something like 80 books about Oz (as in The Wizard of Oz). Only the first 14 were written by L Frank Baum and well out of copyright and available for free on an E-Reader. In fact, they’re still being written.
The movie that’s coming out soon, Oz: The Great and Powerful is going to be the prequel to either The Wizard of Oz (the movie we’ve all seen) or The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (the first book that the movie was mostly based off of).
ETA, just checked the wiki page, looks like it’s set to be a prequel to both of them. I suppose that means it’s going to draw from the movie and the book. That should be…confusing.
I’ve read a(nother writer’s) sequel to Huckleberry Finn.
Thanks, all. I guess I should have specified though: any public domain books that could use a sequel/prequel that haven’t already been done?
Haven’t you hear of Gregory Maguire’s Wicked?
Eric Shanower has been writing some good traditional Oz books lately. (I say traditional to distinguish them from the writers who use the Oz background to write revisionist Oz books like Gregory Maguire, Philip Jose Farmer, Steve Ahlquist, or Marc Levinthal and John Skipp.)
I think you’re going to run into a problem that there’s a lot of authors out there looking for ideas. Any public domain character that has any degree of recognition is an obvious target. You’re not going to find any that haven’t already been used.
I dunno, but maybe some of the less-well-known books by authors of wildly popular ones could stand a pre- or sequel. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a lot of cracking great reads, but most people know only his Sherlock Holmes stories.
IMO, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility have been imagined, re-imagined, updated and followed-up ad nauseum and further adaptations–whether faithful or not–should be embargoed for 25 years (a generation).
Even Persuasion, Emma, Mansfield Park and the unfinished(!) novel Sanditon have had their sequels. Northanger Abbey, however, appears not to be much of an inspiration to those looking to continue an Austen story.
Gulliver’s Travels: the sequel. Gulliver returns to enslave the Lilliputians, uses them as the equivalent of viruses to defeat the Brobdinagians, then utilizes some sort of electronic device to tame the Houyhnhnms. 
I won’t say that’s the exact plot, but you could take a look at Swiftly byAdam Roberts!
Moby Dick: the early years
I think it’d be interesting to see a prequel to Carmilla. Perhaps going a little more explicit with the lesbian themes that are generally read into the book. (Heck, I can even see multiple ways a sequel could work, despite the ending.)
I…I think I may try writing one of those.
*Young Beowulf
After the Time Traveller Returned to the Future
Robinson Crusoe – the Later Years
Odysseus as a Boy
Dracula attends Scholomnance* – it’s like the Star Trek Dark Universe version of Harry Potter – even worse than Slytherin, it’s the School for Evil Sorcerors run by the Devil. The price is the soul of one of the attendees. Dracula drew the short straw, which is how he became a vampire (nobody bit him)
Prince Dakkar of Bundelkund learns Marine Engineering*
*The Adventures of Cavor on the Moon
Tom Swift in Old Age
Gilgamesh the Kid
How Tuck became a Friar
Til Eulenspiegl’s College Pranks
Prince Lear
Phileas Fogg’s Anniversary Trip
And don’t tell me that someone already wrote books devoted to some of these. I know, and have probably read them. That doesn’t mean they aren’t ripe for re-doing, or could be done differently, or better.
*look it up
S.M. Stirling lifted a lot of characters from The White Company to use them as secondary characters in his Emberverse series.
Nothing whatsoever to do with L Frank Baum’s series, the names are merely a weird coincidence.
Barsetshire 2012: revisiting Trollope’s English cathedral city in the 21st century.
Someone wrote a sequel to Treasure Island a few years ago. It was passably entertaining. It was called Return to Treasure Island or something like that, if you want to look for it at the library.