Classics Retold

Classic novels rewritten for modern audiences and introduced to new generations of readers.
Updated September 19, 2022
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Classics Retold

Classic novels rewritten for modern audiences and introduced to new generations of readers.
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Circe :
Miller, Madeline.
Paper Book
This #1 New York Times bestseller is a "bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story" that brilliantly reimagines the life of Circe, formidable sorceress of The Odyssey (Alexandra Alter, TheNew York Times). In the house of Helios,...
The fleshed-out story of Circe, a character from the Odyssey.
Ayesha at last /
Jalaluddin, Uzma,
Paper Book
As seen on The Today Show! One of the best summer romance picks! One of Publishers Weekly Best Romance Books of 2019! A modern-day Muslim Pride and Prejudice for a new generation of love. Ayesha Shamsi has a lot going on. Her dreams of...
A modern day Muslim Pride & Prejudice
Boy, Snow, Bird
Helen Oyeyemi
Paper Book
As seen on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, where it was described as "gloriously unsettling... evoking Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, Angela Carter, Edgar Allan Poe, Gabriel García Márquez, Chris Abani and even Emily Dickinson," and already one of the year's most...
The reimagined story of Snow White set in 1950s America.
On beauty :
Smith, Zadie
Paper Book
Howard Belsey, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn't like Rembrandt, is an Englishman abroad and a long-suffering professor at Wellington, a liberal New England arts college. He has been married for thirty years to Kiki, an American woman who no longer resembles the sexy activist she once was....
Loosely based on E.M. Forster's Howard's End, set in modern day U.K.
The hours /
Cunningham, Michael,
Paper Book
A daring, deeply affecting third novel by the author ofA Home at the End of the WorldandFlesh and Blood. InThe Hours, Michael Cunningham, widely praised as one of the most gifted writers of his generation, draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia...
Three women of different generations whose lives are interconnected by Mrs Dalloway.
Eligible :
Sittenfeld, Curtis.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Wonderfully tender and hilariously funny, Eligible both honors and updates Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Tackling gender, class, courtship, and family, Curtis Sittenfeld reaffirms herself as one of the most dazzling authors writing today....
A modern retelling of Pride & Prejudice
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Maguire, Gregory
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestseller and basis for the Tony-winning hit musical, and smash hit movie series starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande With millions of copies in print around the world, Gregory Maguire's Wicked is established not only as a commentary...
An exploration of the characters & setting of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the bestselling author of Mexican Gothic and Velvet Was the Night comes a lavish historical drama reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Mexico. "This is...
A reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set in nineteenth-century Mexico.
Bridget Jones's diary :
Fielding, Helen,
Paper Book
"130 lbs. (how is it possible to put on 4 pounds overnight? Could flesh have somehow solidified becoming denser and heavier (repulsive, horrifying notion)); alcohol units 2 (excellent) cigarettes 21 (poor but will give up totally tomorrow); number of correct lottery numbers 2 (better, but...
Roughly based on Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice.
Pride and prejudice and zombies :
Grahame-Smith, Seth.
Paper Book
The bestselling literary mashup that transforms Jane Austen's beloved classic into a thrilling zombie adventure filled with romance, satire, sword fights, and undead chaos. Now a major motion picture! Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights,...
Inspired, of course, by Pride & Prejudice.
Pride /
Zoboi, Ibi Aanu,
Paper Book
In a timely update of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, National Book Award finalist Ibi Zoboi skillfully balances cultural identity, class, and gentrification against the heady magic of first love in her vibrant reimagining of this beloved classic. A smart, funny, gorgeous...
A retelling of Pride & Prejudice set in Brooklyn with a much more diverse cast of characters than the original.
Cinder
Marissa Meyer
Paper Book
Soon to be adapted into major motion picture! The first book in the #1 New York Times- and USA Today-Bestselling Lunar Chronicles series by the "Queen of fairytale retellings," Marissa Meyer! See where the futuristic YA fairytale saga all began, with the tale of a teenage...
A futuristic retelling of Cinderella.
The song of Achilles /
Miller, Madeline.
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestseller "At once a scholar's homage to The Iliad and startlingly original work of art....A book I could not put down." --Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House A thrilling, profoundly moving, and utterly unique retelling of the...
Homer's Iliad as told from the perspective of the character Patroclus.
The Eyre affair :
Fforde, Jasper.
Paper Book
Great Britain circa 1985: time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. Baconians are trying to convince the world that Francis Bacon really wrote Shakespeare, there are riots between the Surrealists and...
Set in an alternative 1985, where the protagonist pursues a master criminal through the world of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.
Jane Steele :
Faye, Lyndsay.
Paper Book
Nominated for the 2017 Edgar Award for Best Novel The reimagining of Jane Eyre as a gutsy, heroic serial killer that The New York Times Book Review calls "wonderfully entertaining" and USA Today describes as "sheer mayhem meets Victorian propriety."  <...
A reimagining of Jane Eyre as a serial killer.
Ophelia :
Klein, Lisa M.,
Paper Book
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE! If you think you know Ophelia and Hamlet's story, think again... "A spellbinding tale of love, murder, and revenge." -- VOYA As ambitious and witty as she is beautiful, Ophelia is quick to catch the eye of the...
Tiger Lily /
Anderson, Jodi Lynn.
Paper Book
In this stunning reimagining of J. M. Barrie's beloved classic Peter Pan, New York Times bestselling author Jodi Lynn Anderson expertly weaves a gripping tale of love, loss, and adventure. When fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan deep in the forbidden...
By the book /
Sonneborn, Julia.
Paper Book
An English professor struggling for tenure discovers that her ex-fiancé has just become the president of her college--and her new boss--in this whip-smart modern retelling of Jane Austen's classic Persuasion. Anne Corey is about to get schooled. An English...
A modern day version of Jane Austen's Persuasion.
The Penelopiad /
Atwood, Margaret Eleanor,
Paper Book
"Homer's Odyssey is not the only version of the story. Mythic material was originally oral, and also local -- a myth would be told one way in one place and quite differently in another. I have drawn on material other than the Odyssey, especially for the details of Penelope's...
New boy /
Chevalier, Tracy
Paper Book
Tracy Chevalier brings Shakespeare's Othello--a harrowing drama of jealousy and revenge--to a 1970s era elementary school playground.  Arriving at his fifth school in as many years, diplomat's son Osei Kokote knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day-...
A play on Shakespeare's Othello set in the 70s on a school playground.
Nutshell :
McEwan, Ian
Paper Book
New from the bestselling author of Atonement and The Children Act Trudy has betrayed her husband, John. She's still in the marital home--a dilapidated, priceless London townhouse--but John's not there. Instead, she's with his brother, the profoundly banal Claude,...
The story of Hamlet narrated by a fetus in his mother's womb.
Fool /
Moore, Christopher,
Paper Book
"Hilarious, always inventive, this is a book for all, especially uptight English teachers, bardolaters, and ministerial students." --Dallas Morning News Fool--the bawdy and outrageous New York Times bestseller from the unstoppable Christopher Moore--is a...
The story of King Lear's Fool
March :
Brooks, Geraldine
Paper Book
As the North reels under a series of unexpected defeats during the dark first year of the war, one man leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs. Riveting and elegant as it is meticulously researched...
Wide Sargasso Sea /
Rhys, Jean
Paper Book
Jean Rhys's reputation was made upon the publication of this passionate and heartbreaking novel, in which she brings into the light one of fiction's most mysterious characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Set in the Caribbean, its heroine is Antoinette Cosway, a...
A feminist prequel to Jane Eyre
The other Bennet sister :
Hadlow, Janice.
Paper Book
A NPR CONCIERGE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "Jane fans rejoice! . . . Exceptional storytelling and a true delight." --Helen Simonson, author of the New York Times bestselling novels Major Pettigrew's Last Stand and The Summer Before the War<...
Longbourn /
Baker, Jo.
Paper Book
* Pride and Prejudice was only half the story *   If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she'd most likely be a sight more careful with them.   In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs...
A story of the lives of the servants at Longbourn, the house of the Bennetts in Pride & Prejudice.
Emma :
McCall Smith, Alexander,
Paper Book
The best-selling author of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series deftly escorts Jane Austen's beloved, meddlesome heroine into the twenty-first century in this delightfully inventive retelling.   The summer after university, Emma Woodhouse returns home to the village of Highbury...
Frankissstein :
Winterson, Jeanette,
Paper Book
This "thought-provoking and . . . unabashedly entertaining . . . novel defies conventional expectations and exists, brilliantly and defiantly, on its own terms" (Sarah Lotz, New York Times Book Review). Lake Geneva, 1816. Nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley is inspired to...
Home fire /
Shamsie, Kamila,
Paper Book
"Ingenious... Builds to one of the most memorable final scenes I've read in a novel this century." --The New York Times WINNER OF THE 2018 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION FINALIST FOR THE 2019 INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD LONGLISTED FOR...
A retelling of Sophocles's Antigone set among British Muslims.
Lavinia /
Le Guin, Ursula K.,
Paper Book
In a richly imagined, beautiful new novel, an acclaimed writer gives an epic heroine her voice InThe Aeneid, Vergil's hero fights to claim the king's daughter, Lavinia, with whom he is destined to found an empire. Lavinia herself never speaks a word. Now, Ursula K. Le Guin...
An imagining of the life of Lavinia, a minor character in Virgil's Aeneid.
Grendel /
Gardner, John,
Paper Book
For use in schools and libraries only. The Beowulf story retold from the monster's point of view reveals the darker side of human nature and values.
The retelling of the Old English poem Beowulf from the perspective of the antagonist, Grendel.
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