This is a blog by Andy Duncan, a fiction writer, teacher and journalist, mostly in that order.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
"The New Mother" by Lucy Clifford
In this interview with The Toronto Star, Neil Gaiman says Coraline was partially inspired by "The New Mother" by Lucy Clifford (1882), which he calls "haunting like a nightmare is haunting." Indeed it is. Here's the text.
LOVE that story. David and I reprinted it a number of years ago and we still talk about it. Another terrific story of hers is "Wooden Tony" which is sort of like Pinnochio run backwards: a real boy turns into a wooden toy. Great stuff!
Lucy Clifford's "The New Mother" is one of the great pieces of short fiction. I've written a play adaptation of it - produced by Youtheatre in Montreal. You can find the text on my website: www.kathleenmcdonnell.com
I can see why Neil Gaiman was inspired by it. It's a nicely nasty thing, more like an original folktale or a fairytale gone bad.
ReplyDelete- Richard
LOVE that story. David and I reprinted it a number of years ago and we still talk about it. Another terrific story of hers is "Wooden Tony" which is sort of like Pinnochio run backwards: a real boy turns into a wooden toy. Great stuff!
ReplyDeleteLucy Clifford's "The New Mother" is one of the great pieces of short fiction. I've written a play adaptation of it - produced by Youtheatre in Montreal. You can find the text on my website:
ReplyDeletewww.kathleenmcdonnell.com
-Kathleen McDonnell