The Watkins Book of Urban Legends -Gail de Vos

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A rich collection of folktales and urban legends from around the world, some hilarious, some ridiculous, some frightening or paranoid. Each story comes with an accompanying brief note to provide context. The stories, whether original or modern versions and retellings have all been in circulation in the last decade. New tales reflecting new concerns; old tales repurposed for new audiences and new ways of telling. 

The collection illustrates that these stories are now alive across many new media; where stories that once originated via the oral tradition were then collected and reinterpreted by gatekeepers for “official versions” they now proliferate on X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. This is the first such popular book to bring together stories with both traditional and digital media origins and to examine how the phenomenon of social media has affected both the spread of urban legends and their very nature.