Classics Retold

Classic novels rewritten for modern audiences and introduced to new generations of readers.
Updated September 19, 2022
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Circe : a novel
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
Oyeyemi, Helen.
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 : a novel
Smith, Zadie
Paper Book
One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century Winner of the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction, another bestselling masterwork from the celebrated author of Swing Time and White Teeth "In this sharp, engaging satire, beauty's only skin...
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 : a novel
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 : a novel
Maguire, Gregory.
Paper Book
The New York Times bestseller and basis for the Tony-winning hit musical, soon to be a major motion picture 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 on...
An exploration of the characters & setting of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.
The daughter of Doctor Moreau : a novel
Moreno-Garcia, Silvia
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 : a novel
Fielding, Helen
Paper Book
The #1 bestselling book that defined the 20th century--now updated for the 25th Anniversary! Meet Bridget Jones--a 30-something Singleton who is certain she would have all the answers if she could: a. lose 7 pounds b. stop smoking c. develop Inner Poise...
Roughly based on Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice.
Pride and prejudice and zombies
Austen, Jane
Paper Book
The New York Times best seller is now a major motion picture starring Lily James and Sam Riley, with Matt Smith, Charles Dance, and Lena Headey.    This movie tie-in edition features sixteen pages of color stills from the film, a reading group...
Inspired, of course, by Pride & Prejudice.
Sansei and sensibility
Yamashita, Karen Tei
Paper Book
In these buoyant and inventive stories, Karen Tei Yamashita transfers classic tales across boundaries and questions what an inheritance--familial, cultural, emotional, artistic--really means. In a California of the sixties and seventies, characters examine the contents of deceased relatives'...
Inspired, of course, by Sense & Sensibility.
Cinder
Meyer, Marissa.
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times Bestselling Series! Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl. . ....
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.
Meg & Jo
Kantra, Virginia
Paper Book
A heartwarming modern novel inspired by Little Women, to coincide with the release of the new film in early 2020.
A modern retelling of Little Women.
Jane Steele : a confession
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.
By the book : a novel
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: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus
Margaret Atwood
Audiobook
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.
I, Iago
Galland, Nicole.
Paper Book
"Nicole Galland is exceptionally well versed in the fine nuances of storytelling." --St. Petersburg Times "Galland has an exceptional gift." --Neal Stephenson The critically acclaimed author of The Fool's Tale, Nicole Galland now approaches...
Nutshell : a novel
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.
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
Mr. Rochester
Shoemaker, Sarah
Paper Book
"A CRACKING-GOOD READ!"-- People, Best New Books A deft and irresistible retelling of Charlotte Bronte´s beloved classic Jane Eyre--from the point of view of the dashing, mysterious Mr. Rochester himself. For 170 years, Edward Fairfax Rochester has stood as one of literature...
The other Bennet sister : a novel
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 : a modern retelling
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 : a love story
Winterson, Jeanette
Paper Book
Since her astonishing debut at twenty-five with Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson has achieved worldwide critical and commercial success as "one of the most daring and inventive writers of our time" (Elle). Her new novel, Frankissstein, is an audacious love...
Frankenstein in Baghdad : a novel
Sa℗ dawi, A℗ mad
Paper Book
International Booker Prize finalist Winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction "Brave and ingenious." --The New York Times "Gripping, darkly humorous . . . profound." --Phil Klay, bestselling author and National Book Award winner for...
Home fire : [a novel]
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.
Medea : a modern retelling
Wolf, Christa.
Paper Book
Medea is among the most notorious women in the canon of Greek tragedy: a woman scorned who sacrifices her own children to her jealous rage. In her gripping new novel, Christa Wolf explodes this myth, revealing a fiercely independent woman ensnared in a brutal political battle. Medea, driven by her...
An exploration of Greek mythology's Medea.
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.
Girl meets boy : the myth of Iphis
Smith, Ali
Paper Book
Girl meets boy. It's a story as old as time. But in Whitbread winner Ali Smith's lyrical, funny, mash-up of Ovid's most joyful gender-bending metamorphosis story, girl meets boy in so many more ways than one. Imogen and Anthea, sisters that are opposites, work together at Pure, a creative...
Based on Ovid's story "Iphis and Ianthe" from his Metamorphoses.
Alice
Henry, Christina
Paper Book
Alice has been in the mental hospital in Old Town for years. She doesn't remember why. All she can remember is a tea party long ago. Long ears and blood. Until one night she escapes, free to uncover the truth about what happened to her all those years ago. When Alice escapes, something escapes with...

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