Transformation Reading List - JSCC Pioneer Con 2025

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is Robert Louis Stevenson's thriller allegory of a medical experiment gone wrong and dual personalities, one the essence of good, the other the essence of evil, fighting for supremacy in one man.

The Metamorphosis begins almost comically. A man wakes up to find he has turned into an insect. But the claustrophobic, dirty room and the increasingly distressed narrator soon turn this into a tale of slow horror. Most horrifying of all is his family's reaction to his metamorphosis and their final solution to the problem.

Highlights the interconnected styles and contexts of Virginia Woolf's Orlando by examining individual sentences If the line is the privileged semantic unit in verse, we could ask whether the sentence plays the same role in prose. This possibility holds particular relevance for Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography, which presents an intriguing collage of different sentence styles.

But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked. 'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat. 'We're all mad here.' The 'Alice' books are two of the most translated, most quoted, and best-known books in the world, but what exactly are they? Apparently delightful, innocent fantasies for children, they are also complex textures of mathematical, linguistic, and philosophical jokes. Alice's encounters with theWhite Rabbit, the Cheshire-Cat, the King and Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, Tweedledum and Tweedledee and many other extraordinary characters have made them masterpieces of carefree nonsense, yet they also appeal toadults on a quite different level.

A Tale of Two Cities is shorter and more compact than many of Dickens' novels and also more serious. Set in England and France during the French Revolution, it deals with ideas of grace and resurrection and explores the mob mentality of the Revolution. It is also a love story.

Pip is content with his simple life until a bitter gentlewoman employs him as a sometime companion to herself and her adopted daughter. Pip then aspires to become a gentleman himself, though his dreams are unrealistic until the day he mysteriously comes into a fortune and is sent to London to become refined. The story follows Pip's journey into adulthood and emotional maturity and understanding.

Mr and Mrs Bennet have five unmarried daughters. When the amiable Mr Bingly moves into the neighbourhood, Mrs Bennet therefore feels entirely sure that he is meant for one of her girls. Her eldest Miss Bennet captures his attention, but Mr Bingley's proud friend Mr Darcy does not approve the match and takes his friend away to London. Though not before losing his own heart to the second eldest, Lizzie. With an indolent father on one side and a nervous, ignorant mother on the other, the girls soon find themselves in the middle of a disaster which throws them back in with the two gentlemen.

Jane Eyre is raised in her aunt's house after the death of her parents. Her aunt cannot stand the queer, quiet child and sends her off to a spartan boarding school where she is severely mistreated. She survives, however, and eventually finds herself a situation as a governess in the household of Edward Rochester. She and Rochester fall passionately in love, in one of the great literary love stories.

The Count of Monte Cristo is Alexandre Dumas' classic tale of revenge and adventure. The young sailor Dantes is fallaciously charged with treason and loses his fiancé, his dreams and his life when he is locked up for thirteen years on the island prison of Chateau d'If.

Spoiled and rude, Mary Lennox has been raised by servants as her parents had no time for her. When her parents die in a cholera epidemic, Mary suddenly becomes an orphan. She moves to her uncle's mysterious house in England. The huge mansion and its friendly staff offer Mary a new kind of environment in which to grow. As she explores, she discovers a key to a secret garden and builds friendships with a local boy and her invalid cousin.

A beautiful young man, Dorian Gray, sits for a portrait. In the garden of the artist's house he falls into conversation with Lord Wotton, who convinces him that only beauty is worth pursuing. Gray wishes that his portrait, and not himself, might age and show the effects of time. His wish comes true, and wild, hedonistic pursuits horribly disfigure the portrait.

James Whale's Frankenstein (1931) spawned a phenomenon that has been rooted in world culture for decades. This cinematic Prometheus has generated countless sequels, remakes, rip-offs, and parodies in every media, and this granddaddy of cult movies constantly renews its followers in each generation.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is Robert Louis Stevenson's thriller allegory of a medical experiment gone wrong and dual personalities, one the essence of good, the other the essence of evil, fighting for supremacy in one man. Filled with suspense, the book has had such an impact in popular culture that the expression "Jekyll and Hyde" has itself become synonymous with extremes of, or inconsistent behavior.

Jane Eyre is raised in her aunt's house after the death of her parents. Her aunt cannot stand the queer, quiet child and sends her off to a spartan boarding school where she is severely mistreated. She survives, however, and eventually finds herself a situation as a governess in the household of Edward Rochester. She and Rochester fall passionately in love, in one of the great literary love stories.

The Count of Monte Cristo is Alexandre Dumas' classic tale of revenge and adventure. The young sailor Dantes is fallaciously charged with treason and loses his fiancé, his dreams and his life when he is locked up for thirteen years on the island prison of Chateau d'If.

The mysterious Griffin arrives at a picturesque English inn during a snowstorm, swaddled in bandages which cover his face and with his eyes hidden behind dark glasses. His odd get-up and irascible behavior intrigue the locals, who believe him to be the victim of an accident.