Classics Retold

Classic novels rewritten for modern audiences and introduced to new generations of readers.
Updated September 19, 2022
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Circe
Madeline Miller
Paper Book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2019 THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER THE NEW YORK TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER SELECTED AS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY BUZZFEED, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, GUARDIAN, I...
The fleshed-out story of Circe, a character from the Odyssey.
Ayesha at Last
Uzma Jalaluddin
Paper Book
A big-hearted, captivating, modern-day Muslim Pride and Prejudice, with hijabs instead of top hats and kurtas instead of corsets.
A modern day Muslim Pride & Prejudice
Boy, Snow, Bird
Helen Oyeyemi
Paper Book
In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts, looking, she believes, for beauty — the opposite of the life she’s left behind in New York. She marries a local widower and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow Whitman.
The reimagined story of Snow White set in 1950s America.
Eligible
Curtis Sittenfeld
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
Gregory Maguire
Paper Book
The New York Times bestseller and basis for the Tony Award-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...
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
Carlota Moreau: A young woman, growing up in a distant and luxuriant estate, safe from the conflict and strife of the Yucatan peninsula, the only daughter of a genius - or a madman.Montgomery Laughton: A melancholic overseer with a tragic past and a propensity for alcohol, an outcast who assists Dr...
A reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set in nineteenth-century Mexico.
Bridget Jones's Diary
Helen Fielding
Paper Book
'In an emergency, I turn to Bridget Jones' DOLLY ALDERTON What do you do when a girlfriend's 60th birthday party is the same day as your boyfriend's 30th? Is it morally wrong to have a blow-dry when one of your children has head lice? Is sleeping...
Roughly based on Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Seth Grahame-Smith
Ebook
Inspired, of course, by Pride & Prejudice.
Pride
Ibi Zoboi
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
A forbidden romance. A deadly plague. Earth's fate hinges on one girl . . . CINDER, a gifted mechanic in New Beijing, is also a cyborg. She's reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's sudden illness. But when her life becomes...
A futuristic retelling of Cinderella.
The Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller
Paper Book
**OVER 3 MILLION COPIES SOLD** WINNER OF THE ORANGE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION THE INTERNATIONAL SENSATION A SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'Captivating' DONNA TARTT 'I loved it' J K ROWLING
Homer's Iliad as told from the perspective of the character Patroclus.
Jane Steele
Lyndsay Faye
Paper Book
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"--nominated for the 2017 Edgar Award for Best Novel. "Reader, I...
A reimagining of Jane Eyre as a serial killer.
The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus
Margaret Atwood
Ebook
In a splendid contemporary twist, Margaret Atwood tells Penelope's story. In Homer's account, Penelope is the constant wife. It is she who rules Odysseus's kingdom of Ithaca during his twenty-year absence at the Trojan War. She raises their wayward son and fends off over a hundred insistent...
New Boy
Tracy Chevalier
Ebook
A play on Shakespeare's Othello set in the 70s on a school playground.
Fool
Christopher Moore
Paper Book
This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity,. . . If that's the sort of thing you think you might enjoy, then you have happened upon the perfect story!' So speaks...
The story of King Lear's Fool
March
Geraldine Brooks
Audiobook
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize--a powerful love story set against the backdrop of the Civil War, from the author of The Secret Chord. From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has animated the character of the absent father, March, and...
The Other Bennet Sister
Janice Hadlow
Paper Book
Longbourn
Jo Baker
Audiobook
* 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 answer to...
A story of the lives of the servants at Longbourn, the house of the Bennetts in Pride & Prejudice.
Frankissstein
Jeanette Winterson
Paper Book
***LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019*** **SHORTLISTED FOR THE COMEDY WOMEN IN PRINT PRIZE 2020** **LONGLISTED FOR THE POLARI PRIZE 2020** A radical love story for right now, from 'one of the most gifted writers working today' (New York Times)<...
Frankenstein in Baghdad
Ahmed Saadawi
Paper Book
  WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION WINNER OF THE KITSCHIES GOLDEN TENTACLE AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE
Home Fire
Kamila Shamsie
Ebook
_______________WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION WINNER OF THE LONDON HELLENIC PRIZEA BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, EVENING STANDAND AND NEW YORK TIMES_______________'The book for our times' - Judges of...
A retelling of Sophocles's Antigone set among British Muslims.
The Ballad of Black Tom
Victor LaValle
Paper Book
One of NPR's Best Books of 2016, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, the British Fantasy Award, the This is Horror Award for Novella of the Year, and a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, and Bram Stoker Awards People move to New York looking for magic...
A retelling H. P. Lovecraft's "The Horror at Red Hook" from the viewpoint of a black man.

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