Battle For Denmark

It’s that time of the year!

ETA: Whew! This list has been circulating for a few years now, which is awesome. Thanks so much to everyone who has sent along series for me to add. I save every suggestion sent and try to add them in batches so as not to clog up feeds with individual updates. For that reason, I also don’t mark the status of each series, because with this many titles, that changes regularly. But please keep those suggestions coming! (And please, make sure you note what the series is retelling when sending it my way.)

Sidenote: Series are arranged by original author’s last name, then by title of original work, then by web series title, with series about multiple titles clumped at the end.

Ever since The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, literary web series have EXPLODED. What’s not to like? You get a modernized retelling of some of your favorite stories in bite-sized weekly (or semiweekly, in some cases) installments. They’re fantastic! I’ve gotten really frustrated at how many have popped up without me knowing, though. I WANT TO KNOW THEM ALL! I even asked my feed for a master list, but no one could deliver.

So I made one myself. Below is a list of every literature-related retelling web series I could find, organized by author’s last name (if applicable). If I’ve missed any, PLEASE add on to the list and keep it going. Enjoy!

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

The Attic - Little Women

The Jo March Vlog - Little Women

Lil Women - Little Women

The March Family Letters - Little Women

JANE AUSTEN

The Emma Agenda - Emma

Emma Approved - Emma

The Emma Project - Emma

Emma’s Journal - Emma

From Mansfield With Love - Mansfield Park

The Cate Moreland Chronicles - Northanger Abbey

Northbound - Northanger Abbey

The Elliots - Persuasion

Persuaded To - Persuasion

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries - Pride and Prejudice

Welcome To Sanditon - Sanditon (unfinished Austen MS)

Dashwood Days - Sense and Sensibility

The Dashwood Diaries - Sense and Sensibility

Elinor and Marianne Take Barton - Sense and Sensibility

The Family Dashwood - Sense and Sensibility

Mars & Elly - Sense and Sensibility

Project Dashwood - Sense and Sensibility

The Jane Games - All

J.M. BARRIE

The New Adventures of Peter and Wendy - Peter Pan

Or So the Story Goes - Peter Pan

FRANK L. BAUM

The Grey Tarmac Road - The Wizard of Oz

SAMUEL BECKETT

While Waiting for Godot - Waiting for Godot

CHARLOTTE BRONTË

The Autobiography of Jane Eyre - Jane Eyre

EMILY BRONTË

W.H. Academy - Wuthering Heights

FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT

A Little Princess - A Little Princess

The Misselthwaite Archives - The Secret Garden

LEWIS CARROLL

The Wunder Institute - Alice in Wonderland

KATE CHOPIN

Nattie Kissable - The Kiss

NOËL COWARD

School Spirit - Blithe Spirit

C.J. DAUGHERTY

The Night School - The Night School series

JOSÉ DE ALENCAR

Dona Moça - Senhora

CHARLES DICKENS

Dear Natalie - A Christmas Carol

FRANKLIN W. DIXON

The New Hardy Boys - The Hardy Boys (and Nancy Drew!)

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

221B - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The Adventures of Jamie Watson (And Sherlock Holmes) - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

A Finger Slip - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

My Dear Watson - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

s[HER]lock - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

ALEXANDER DUMAS

All For One - The Three Musketeers

The First Musketeer - The Three Musketeers

GEORGE ELLIOT

Middlemarch: The Series - Middlemarch

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

The Nick Carraway Chronicles - The Great Gatsby

Project Carraway - The Great Gatsby

ELIZABETH GASKELL

East & West - North & South

Maggie Hale’s Corner - North & South

THOMAS HARDY

Away from It All - Far from the Madding Crowd

VICTOR HUGO

Friends of the ABC - Les Miserables

CAROLYN KEENE

Nancy’s Vlog - Nancy Drew

SHERIDAN LE FANU

Carmilla - Carmilla (novella)

GASTON LEROUX

Notes By Christine - The Phantom of the Opera

The Private Letters of Christine Daae - The Phantom of the Opera

GEORGE R.R. MARTIN

School of Thrones - Game of Thrones

L.M. MONTGOMERY

Green Gables Fables - Anne of Green Gables

Project AoGG - Anne of Green Gables

Project Green Gables - Anne of Green Gables

BARONESS EMMA ORCZY

Marguerite’s Memoirs - The Scarlet Pimpernel

Masked - The Scarlet Pimpernel

EDGAR ALLEN POE

A Tell-Tale Vlog - Edgar Allen Poe

ELEANOR H. PORTER

The Glad Game - Pollyanna

JANE PORTER

Janny’s Diary - Janny

EDMOND ROSTAND

The Adventures of Serena Berg - Cyrano de Bergerac

J.K. ROWLING

Always Lily - Harry Potter

Lily Evans and the Eleventh Hour - Harry Potter

Magic for Muggles - Harry Potter

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The Better Strangers - As You Like It

Like, As It Is - As You Like It

Twincident - Comedy of Errors

Battle for Denmark - Hamlet

A Document of Madness - Hamlet

Hamlet the Dame - Hamlet

Hashtag Hamet - Hamlet

A Labor of Love - Love’s Labors Lost

Lovely Little Losers - Love’s Labours Lost

Mac & Beth - Macbeth

Weird Sisters - Macbeth

Bright Summer Night - A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream

Love In Idleness - A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream

A Midsemester’s Night’s Dream - A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream

A Midsummer’s Night’s Vlog - A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream

A Bit Much - Much Ado About Nothing

Blithe & Bonnie - Much Ado About Nothing

Messina High - Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About A Web Series - Much Ado About Nothing

Nothing Much To Do - Much Ado About Nothing

The Soliloquies of Santiago - Othello

Any Other Rosie - Romeo and Juliet

Any Other Vlog - Romeo and Juliet

Jules and Monty - Romeo and Juliet

Rome and Juliet - Romeo and Juliet

Call Me Katie - The Taming of the Shrew

Kate the Cursed - The Taming of the Shrew

Shrew That - The Taming of the Shrew

Twelfth Grade Or Whatever - The Twelfth Night

All’s Fair Play - Various Shakespeare Plays

Nothing Like the Sun - Various Shakespeare Plays

Shakes - Various Shakespeare Plays

Shakespeare Republic - Various Shakespeare Plays

Titus and Dronicus - Various Shakespeare Plays (I think?)

MARY SHELLEY

Frankenstein, MD - Frankenstein

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The Strange Case - Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde 

To Run and Hyde - Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde

BRAM STOKER

Mina Murray’s Journal - Dracula

E.B. WHITE

Charlotte’s Web Series - Charlotte’s Web

OSCAR WILDE

In Earnest - The Importance of Being Earnest

MYTHOLOGY/FAIRY TALES

Rex - Arthurian legend

Cindy - Cinderella

The Further Adventures of Cupid and Eros - Cupid myth

University Ever After - Disney tales

Fairy Tale Therapy - Fairy tales

Or So the Story Goes - Fairy tales

The Blair Goddess Project - Greek mythology

Pantheon University - Greek mythology

Grimm Reflections - Grimms’ Fairy Tales

My Name Is Mulan - Mulan

Merry Maidens - Robin Hood

VARIOUS

Fairly Em - Fair Em (author unknown)

Classic Alice - Various

Edgar Allen Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party - Various

The Fantasmorgi - Various

I Didn’t Write This - Various (insp. by literary quotes)

Kissing in the Rain - Various

Or So The Story Goes - Various

ABOUT THE AUTHORS THEMSELVES

Blankverse - William Shakespeare (and others)

Writing Majors - Emily Bronte, Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde

Words from Wilde - Oscar Wilde

***Disclaimers***

1. I haven’t watched all of these, so I can’t vouch for their quality.

2. Given the above, I also can’t vouch for their content. (Most seem to be PG, though.)

3. Some are in progress and/or on hiatus and therefore incomplete.

4. Some have not yet started. (They’re marked.)

If you follow this blog, then you’re probably already aware of my love for Middlemarch: The Series, the sweet, realistic, incredibly gay adaptation of George Eliot’s novel that’s been airing since March. Well, the last episode airs tonight, and since this beautiful series is ending, it seems like a good time to get the word out for some other series that you should be watching. I’m linking official series playlists/trailers where I can and linking to official Tumblr blogs where they exist for easy access to more information.

Battle for Denmark which unfortunately already ended after very little press, is a well-acted, well-adapted, unfortunately very straight and white adaptation of Hamlet narrated by a female Horatio who is working as the social media intern for Claudius’s political campaign. I got my Shakespeare professor to watch this one, and even he thought it was a very good adaption. Watch it here. Official blog @battle4denmark  

Any Other Rosie is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet from the perspective of Rosaline (in an interpretation in which she is a successful vlogger, naturally). I’m not caught up, but people are enjoying it a lot, and it has great representation, with an asexual Asian lead, two nonbinary characters in a relationship with each other, and Tybalt as a trans man. Watch from the beginning here. Official blog @stuckinastoryproductions​

Project Green Gables is in its third season, and I cannot recommend this show enough. Anne is a beautiful, compelling, relatable protagonist played by the utterly phenomenal Laura Eklund Nhaga. This season is more diverse than ever before, which new LGBTQ+ and POC representation, and it features the slowest slow burn ship in all of webseries world ever. Add in some deeply realistic and relatable depictions of college, and it’s the perfect once-a-week Anne of Green Gables adaptation you didn’t know you sorely needed. Full series playlist. Season three only. Official blog @projectgreengables​

Dear Natalie is an upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol made by RSC Productions (the team behind TAJWASH, Hamlet the Dame, Eddy Rex, etc.), and it looks AMAZING so far, with Scrooge reimagined as a selfish YouTuber who only posts clickbait and sponsored videos. Watch the trailer. Official blog @remarkablesingularcurious​

Jack Marshall Can’t Do This stars Wes Aderhold, who most of you will probably remember as George Wickham from The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. This series is based on a work of classic literature, but the creators won’t say which one until the end to avoid spoilers. Speculation is welcome. Watch it here.

Fairly Emily is an adaption of Fair Em, an obscure Elizabethan play that some believe was written by Shakespeare. It’s college AU with two YouTube channels and a lot of drama. Playlist here. Official blog @oxfordcollegefilmclub​

Janny’s Diary  is an upcoming series (starting in two weeks) based on Janny by Jane Porter and created by Light and Gold Productions (the team behind The Glad Game). It looks sweet and well-acted and incredibly aesthetically pleasing, and I’m very excited to watch an LIW adapted from such an obscure work. Watch the trailer. Official blog @lightandgoldproductions​

Maggie Hale’s Corner is now about a dozen episodes in, and things are picking up. This series is an adaptation of North and South with a whole lot of political opinions and a WHOLE lot of queer white women, set in a factory town and dealing with a multitude of weighty issues, including the lives of factory workers and terminal illness. Official blog @maggiehalescorner​

Twincidents is my personal favorite on this list. It’s eight episodes in, and I already love everything about this series. It’s an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors with added adoption themes and a whole lot of love and friendship and bi POC protagonists and Shakespeare-within-Shakespeare (several of the characters are involved in a production of Twelfth Night). The team behind this is absolutely stellar (it’s the same group that made Project Dashwood, and a WHOLE lot of Away From It All people are involved as well). The characters are relatable and lovable, and to top everything off, the Alexes are exactly one day older than me, which is the closest I’ve ever been temporally to a fictional character. Also, there’s ice cream, and the transmedia is really well done. Watch from the beginning here. Official blog @travellinglemonprod

Lastly, it isn’t an LIW, but season two of The Uncanny Upshurs @parafable starts on Monday, and it deserves just as much promotion as any of these other shows. UnUps is an original story about magic and identity, set in both England and America. The two leads are a trans lesbian and a bisexual cis man who happen to be twins – and they also happen to be witches. And there are a lot of familiar faces in both the cast and the crew from all sorts of other webseries. Season one playlist. Season two announcement. Official blog @parafable