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Curated playlist

British novels adapted into films

  • James BondJames Bond got his name from a field guide to Caribbean birds. Ian Fleming wanted the dullest name he could find.
  • The Pickwick PapersCharles Dickens, then 24, was hired to write captions for comic sporting drawings. He knew nothing of sport.
  • A Christmas CarolDickens wrote A Christmas Carol in six weeks, walking 15 to 20 miles at night around London.
  • The Lord of the RingsA Collins contact told Tolkien that The Lord of the Rings "urgently wanted cutting."
  • The Borrowers (novel)In the novel The Borrowers, tiny people take household items that vanish. It won the 1952 Carnegie Medal.
  • FrankensteinBoris Karloff's lightning-jolted monster is not what Mary Shelley wrote. That image came largely from a 1931 film.
  • Jane EyreOne reviewer declared that no woman could possibly have written Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte wrote as Currer Bell.
  • Harry PotterThe Harry Potter series began on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. It sat still for four hours.
  • The Other Boleyn GirlThe Other Boleyn Girl, a 2001 novel, opens with a thirteen-year-old handed to a king by her own family.
  • The War of the WorldsIn The War of the Worlds, the Martians are beaten by germs. Earthly bacteria kill them, since they had no immunity.
  • Alice's Adventures in WonderlandLewis Carroll improvised Alice's Adventures in Wonderland on a boat trip in 1862. He published it three years later.
  • Midnight's ChildrenIndira Gandhi sued over a single sentence in Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children. It was settled out of court.
  • Pride and PrejudiceJane Austen sold Pride and Prejudice outright for £110 and came to regret it. She had hoped for £150.
  • Charlie and the Chocolate FactoryDahl's early drafts of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory had nine golden tickets, not five.
  • Heart of DarknessJoseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness grew from a river trip he really took.
  • To the LighthouseTo the Lighthouse builds a whole novel on a boy's cancelled boat trip. Virginia Woolf's 1927 book has almost no action.
  • The Two TowersTolkien was "not at all happy about the title The Two Towers." He never settled which two of five towers it meant.
  • V for VendettaV for Vendetta is a British graphic novel by writer Alan Moore and artist David Lloyd, and its hero wears a Guy Fawkes mask that hides his face. He is an anarchist who treats the toppling of a government as theatre. The government is a…
  • Gulliver's TravelsGulliver's Travels gave computer science the terms big-endian and little-endian.
  • The Return of the KingTolkien disliked the title The Return of the King because it gave away too much. He preferred The War of the Ring.
  • Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydeA dream gave Stevenson the idea for Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. His wife woke him mid-transformation.
  • The Lost World (Doyle novel)The Lost World, a 1912 adventure novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, began with a startlingly bold ambition. While writing it, Doyle told his editor, Herbert Greenhough Smith: "My ambition is to do for the boys' book what Sherlock Holmes did…
  • The Fellowship of the RingWas the scary-then-safe rhythm of The Fellowship of the Ring planned, or a writer finding his way?

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