Everyone likes to play dress up from time to time, including your favorite authors. Recently, several of them worked with photographer Cambridge Jones on a project for the The Story Museum in Oxford involving the authors cosplaying as their favorite characters from childhood. Jones came up with the idea when the museum approached him about an exhibit called “26 Characters.” The photographer wanted to create images that would make passersby stop and look–putting authors in costume definitely accomplishes that goal.

Jones recruited 26 writers for the project and worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre to get costumes for all of them. According to the BBC, the finished project features the photos in a character-themed interactive space. While attendees look at the photographs, they can listen to authors speaking about the characters they dressed as and reading extracts from their own books.

Authors selected personalities ranging from pirates to queens to creatures. Neil Gaiman (The Ocean at the End of the Lane) picked Badger from Wind in the Willows (pictured above). Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials) transformed into Long John Silver from Treasure Island. Holly Smale (Geek Girl) became a convincing version of the White Queen from The Chronicles of Narnia. Seeing these pictures makes me want to dig through the boxes of books I had when I was a kid and re-read old favorites.

You can see the photographs in person at The Story Museum in the UK through November 2nd.

If you dressed up as your favorite character from childhood, who would you be? Let us know in the comments.

HT: io9, all photos by Cambridge Jones