Posthumous sequels

New authors produce sequels to famous books written by others:

In bookstores this week, Arthur Dent is hitchhiking through the galaxy again. Dracula glides through the London fog once more, still in need of overwrought young women with plunging necklines and exposed veins. Winnie the Pooh is back to toddling around the Hundred Acre Wood.

This would not be remarkable were it not for the fact that the authors who created these literary icons — Douglas Adams, Bram Stoker, A.A. Milne — have been dead anywhere from eight years to nearly a century. But in the twilight world of officially sanctioned sequels, death is not an impediment to character development.

In three new books — “And Another Thing . . . ,” the sixth volume of the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series; “Return to the Hundred Acre Wood,” the new Winnie the Pooh book; and “Dracula: The Un-Dead” — the estates of the deceased writers (or their descendants) have hired writers to breathe new life into these characters, whether their creators would have wanted them biting people on the neck again or not. It’s not a new practice, but this troika of high-profile revivals, all within a 10-day period, brings these after-death sequels to a new level of prominence. . . .

The literary creations of authors stopped being sacred territory roughly 20 years ago, when the estates of late authors began leasing out the copyrights to old works. Scarlett O’Hara rose to meet another day years after Margaret Mitchell died; James Bond has had endless adventures since the demise of his creator, Ian Fleming; and Peter Pan flew again a couple of years ago, three-quarters of a century after J.M. Barrie passed away.

This has also been done to Sherlock Holmes, Huckleberry Finn, Captain Ahab, and Jane Austen’s novels. And new Narnia novels are in the works.

I abominate this literary phenomenon. Am I wrong or right?