Wold Newton family

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The Wold Newton family.

The Wold Newton family is a literary concept derived from a form of crossover fiction developed by the science fiction writer Philip José Farmer. Farmer suggested in two fictional "biographies" of fictional characters (Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life), that the (real) meteorite which fell in Wold Newton, Yorkshire, England, on December 13, 1795 was radioactive and caused genetic mutations in the occupants of a passing coach. Many of their descendants were thus endowed with extremely high intelligence and strength, as well as an exceptional capacity and drive to perform good, or, as the case may be, evil deeds. The progeny of these travellers were purported to have been the real-life originals of fictionalised characters, both heroic and villainous, over the last few hundred years, such as Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Doc Savage, and Lord Peter Wimsey.

Other popular characters that Philip José Farmer concluded were members of the Wold Newton mutant family include: Solomon Kane; Captain Blood; The Scarlet Pimpernel; Sherlock Holmes's nemesis Professor Moriarty; Phileas Fogg; The Time Traveller (main character of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells); Allan Quatermain; A.J. Raffles; Professor Challenger; Richard Hannay; Bulldog Drummond; the evil Fu Manchu and his adversary, Sir Denis Nayland Smith; G-8; The Shadow; Sam Spade; Doc Savage's cousin Patricia Savage, and one of his five assistants, Monk Mayfair; The Spider; Nero Wolfe; Mr. Moto; The Avenger; Philip Marlowe; James Bond; Lew Archer; Travis McGee; Monsieur Lecoq; and Arsène Lupin.

Similar creations

An earlier proponent of this sort of fiction was William S. Baring-Gould who wrote a fictional biography of Sherlock Holmes. In 1977 C. W. Scott-Giles, an expert in heraldry, published a history of Lord Peter Wimsey's family, going back to 1066 (but describing the loss of the family tree going back to Adam and Eve); the book is based on material from his correspondence with Dorothy L. Sayers, who wrote at least two of the family anecdotes in the book, one of them in the French language of the Middle Ages. For details, see Duke of Denver.

Warren Ellis's comic book series Planetary has a similar premise of fitting many different superhero, science fiction, and fantasy elements into the same universe. (Though for the most part, constrained by the needs of the story and copyright, Ellis does not use the originals but rather his own re-interpretations of the archetypes). Author Kim Newman has stated that his Anno Dracula series was partially inspired by the Wold Newton family.

The anthology series Tales of the Shadowmen edited by Jean-Marc Lofficier is also based on the Wold Newton concept and includes characters from French literature.

Perhaps the most well-known combination of heroes is the Justice League of America (although a closer example is its forerunner, the Justice Society of America, which brought together a group of heroes who had previously been assumed to exist in separate fictional worlds).

Alan Moore used a similar technique in his comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which teams several Victorian-era pulp characters together. However, Moore's team is not descended from a single family, it is merely a combination of historical literary figures from a certain timeframe.

The Wold Newton Universe

The Wold Newton Universe is an expanded universe made up by admirers of the Wold Newton concept. This expansion consists of crossover fiction, using the Wold Newton meteorite as a unifying device, that has revised certain aspects of major characters found in literary fiction including penny dreadfuls, pulp comics, Victorian, Romanticism and Renaissance literature, steampunk, Gothic novels, fairy tales, mythology and folklore.

The universe was adapted in order to fit every major character into the Wold Newton family, which includes superheroes and supervillains. However, in order for the universe to adhere to certain details from particular works of fiction, exceptions have been made. Such is the reason for so-called "Krypto-revisionism": the characters of the books and comics are usually treated as fictionalized, exaggerated versions of "real" people, and accounts that strain suspension of disbelief too much are dismissed as complete fabrication.

Family vs. Universe

Although the two terms are used almost interchangeably, there is an important distinction: Wold Newton Family members — those who are descended from or otherwise related to the individuals exposed to the meteor strike — and Wold Newton Universe members, unrelated to the family, who have met one or more family members in crossovers. Examples of this can be found in the works of Farmer that created the concept: several family members were present at the death of King Kong, thus firmly placing Kong in the universe, but Kong almost certainly cannot be a family member. The theory that Kong may have been part of a travelling menagerie in the vicinity of the meteor strike is highly unlikely to be correct, since gorillas are not known to have been brought to Europe until the nineteenth century. Attempts have even been made to extend the family into the far future, specifically linking them to the 23rd-century characters of Star Trek (see below).

External links

• New book: - Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton Universe (ISBN 1-932265-14-7)
• An Expansion of Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton Universe
• The Secret History of the Wold Newton Universe
• The Wold Newton Chronicles
• French Wold Newton Universe
• Schroeder's Speculations - Wold Newton Articles
• M*O*N*S*T*A*A*H
• Yet Another Wold Newton Universe Site
• The Wold Newton Universe and Star Trek