# Same story, more than one book **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 13, 2017, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-story-more-than-one-book/782113 "2017-03-13T20:28:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2017, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-story-more-than-one-book/782113/41 "2017-03-17T20:05:58Z")
Neil Gaiman’s “Snow, Glass, and Apples” is an interesting take on Snow White. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2017, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-story-more-than-one-book/782113/42 "2017-03-17T20:30:38Z")
> [@JR\_Brown](#): > > I’m not quite sure I understand what you’re looking for; using the _Sherlock Holmes_ analogy, you’d accept as a suitable example one of Doyle’s stories rewritten to be in third-person present tense, but still keeping Watson as the POV character and following the same events? > > . Weird fact – Although almost all of the Sherlock Holmes stories are written from the POV of Watson, and a handful of the later ones purportedly by Holmes (_The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier, The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane_), two of the stories written by Doyle are told entirely from an anonymous third-person point of view – One is _The Mazarin Stone_. The other is _His Last Bow_If you’ve read them, you’ll know why. _The Mazarin Stone_ started life as a stage play that, as far as I know, was never produced. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2017, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-story-more-than-one-book/782113/43 "2017-03-17T20:49:31Z")
There’s obviously a certain amount of this in the Flashman novels. Naturally usually with the conceit that Flashman is telling it as it really was. _Tom Brown’s Schooldays_, _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Empty House”, etc. The most elaborate is _Royal Flash_ supposedly being the real-life events transmuted by Hope into _The Prisoner of Zenda_. But with Fraser’s real point being that Hope’s plotting was merely adequate given the set-up. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2017, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-story-more-than-one-book/782113/44 "2017-03-18T00:38:21Z")
This is touched on in Johnson’s film Hercules. Near the start is Hercules recounting his slaying of the Lernean Hydra - they were a band of men. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2017, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-story-more-than-one-book/782113/45 "2017-03-18T09:48:54Z")
> [@JR\_Brown](#): > > I don’t think that sort of minor tweak to an existing story happens very often in prose fiction, except in rare cases where the author is not happy with the originally-published form and decides to change things for a newer edition. It doesn’t seem like a significant enough change in effect to be worth another author’s trouble. Well that’s what I was wondering. If it happened at all. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2017, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-story-more-than-one-book/782113/46 "2017-03-18T10:00:37Z")
> [@MHaas](#): > > How about a film to written work crossover? > > Peter Watts’ fantastic short story _The Things_ tells the story of the film _The Thing_ from the alien’s point of view. > > [http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts\_01\_10/](http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/) The author could have done so much better if he had titled his story _It’s Just Me_… ---
**Author:** ![Cabbage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@Cabbage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabbage)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2017, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-story-more-than-one-book/782113/47 "2017-03-18T11:33:42Z")
_The Deptford Trilogy_ by Robertson Davies is very much like that. It includes overlapping events spanning a couple of generations from the perspectives of at least three different characters. That is one of the book’s main themes. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2017, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-story-more-than-one-book/782113/48 "2017-03-18T14:29:52Z")
[Gregory Maguire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Maguire) actually tackled several other stories besides Oz. And Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes is an interesting take on several tales, including telling the tale of Goldilocks from the POV of the bears (this brazen hussy breaks into our house, eats our food, breaks our furniture, and sleeps on our beds). ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2017, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-story-more-than-one-book/782113/49 "2017-03-18T16:21:46Z")
[The Other Log of Phileas Fogg](https://sfbook.com/the-other-log-of-phileas-fogg.htm) by Philip Jose Farmer. Around the World in 80 Days was only half the story. Typical Farmer craziness. I don’t remember much of the book, but I probably would have gotten much more out of it had I read the Verne book. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2017, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-story-more-than-one-book/782113/50 "2017-03-18T21:31:18Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > [The Other Log of Phileas Fogg](https://sfbook.com/the-other-log-of-phileas-fogg.htm) by Philip Jose Farmer. Around the World in 80 Days was only half the story. Typical Farmer craziness. I don’t remember much of the book, but I probably would have gotten much more out of it had I read the Verne book. I enjoyed that one. Harry Turtledove wrote a pair of stories about a time traveller, one (“Forty, Counting Down”) told from his perspective and the other (“Twenty-One, Counting Up”) from the perspective of his 19-year-younger self. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2017, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-story-more-than-one-book/782113/51 "2017-03-19T02:15:14Z")
The best-known novel by Jean Rhys is _Wide Sargasso Sea_, the story of Bertha Mason, the first wife of Mr Rochester in Charlotte Brontë’s _Jane Eyre_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-story-more-than-one-book/782113.md?page=2)