Classics Retold

Classic novels rewritten for modern audiences and introduced to new generations of readers.
Updated September 19, 2022
Unbound Librarians
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Circe
Madeline Miller
Paper Book
The international Number One bestseller from the author of The Song of Achilles, shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction Woman. Witch. Myth. Mortal. Outcast. Lover. Destroyer. Survivor. CIRCE. In the house of Helios, god of the sun and...
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
On Beauty
Zadie Smith
Paper Book
When Howard Belsey's oldest son Jerome falls for Victoria, the stunning daughter of the right-wing Monty Kipps, both families find themselves thrown together, enacting a cultural and personal war against each other.
Loosely based on E.M. Forster's Howard's End, set in modern day U.K.
The Hours
Michael Cunningham
Paper Book
Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize and Pen Faulkner prize. Made into an Oscar-winning film, 'The Hours' is a daring and deeply affecting novel inspired by the life and work of Virginia Woolf. In 1920s London, Virginia Woolf is fighting against her rebellious spirit as she...
Three women of different generations whose lives are interconnected by Mrs Dalloway.
Eligible
Curtis Sittenfeld
Paper Book
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'This is Pride and Prejudice 2.0 and I must confess, I liked it more than the original' STYLIST 'Bold and brilliant' GLAMOUR 'Sheer joy... Giddy and glam and a hearty update of Pride and Prejudice' JESSIE BURTON, author of The Miniaturist
A modern retelling of Pride & Prejudice
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic and Velvet Was the Night comes a dreamy reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Mexico. 'ONE OF...
A reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set in nineteenth-century Mexico.
Bridget Jones's Diary
Helen Fielding
Paper Book
With an introduction by Caitlin Moran. A dazzling urban satire of modern relationships?An ironic, tragic insight into the demise of the nuclear family?Or the confused ramblings of a pissed thirty-something?As Bridget documents her struggles through the social minefield of her thirties and tries to...
Roughly based on Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Seth Grahame-Smith
Ebook
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: Experience Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice as never before in this audacious horror mash-up full of romance, heartbreak, swordfights--and zombies! This updated edition features 16 pages of color stills from the film adaptation, a...
Inspired, of course, by Pride & Prejudice.
Sansei and Sensibility
Karen Tei Yamashita
Ebook
Inspired, of course, by Sense & Sensibility.
Cinder
Marissa Meyer
Ebook
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.
The Eyre Affair
Jasper Fforde
Paper Book
The first book in the phenomenally successful Thursday Next series, from Number One bestselling author Jasper Fforde. 'Always ridiculous, often hilarious ... blink and you miss a vital narrative leap. There are shades of Douglas Adams, Lewis Carroll, 'Clockwork...
Set in an alternative 1985, where the protagonist pursues a master criminal through the world of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.
Jane Steele
Lyndsay Faye
Paper Book
A reimagining of Jane Eyre as a serial killer.
The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus
Margaret Atwood
Paper Book
A fresh take on what follows Homer's The Odyssey by the international best-selling author of The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood. Penelope. Immortalised in legend and myth as the devoted wife of the glorious Odysseus, silently weaving and unpicking and weaving again as...
New Boy
Tracy Chevalier
Paper Book
'O felt her presence behind him like a fire at his back.' Arriving at his fourth school in six years, diplomat's son Osei Kokote knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day - so he's lucky to hit it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one student...
A play on Shakespeare's Othello set in the 70s on a school playground.
Nutshell
Ian McEwan
Paper Book
**The Number One Sunday Timesbestseller**A Daily Telegraph / Guardian / Irish Times / Spectator / Sunday Times / The Times Book of the YearTrudy has betrayed her husband, John. She's still in the marital home - a dilapidated, priceless...
The story of Hamlet narrated by a fetus in his mother's womb.
Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys
Paper Book
Jean Rhys's late, literary masterpiece Wide Sargasso Sea was inspired by Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and is set in the lush, beguiling landscape of Jamaica in the 1830s. Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to...
A feminist prequel to Jane Eyre
Mr. Rochester
Sarah Shoemaker
Paper Book
Uncover the secrets of Edward Fairfax Rochester, the beloved, enigmatic hero of Jane Eyre, as he tells his story for the first time in Mr Rochester, Sarah Shoemaker's gorgeous retelling of one of the most romantic stories in literature. On his eighth birthday,...
The Other Bennet Sister
Janice Hadlow
Paper Book
It is a sad fact of life that if a young woman is unlucky enough to come into the world without expectations, she had better do all she can to ensure she is born beautiful. To be handsome and poor is misfortune enough; but to be both plain and penniless is a hard fate indeed. In Jane Austen's Pride...
Longbourn
Jo Baker
Paper Book
THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOKCLUB PICK 'Utterly engrossing' Guardian It is wash-day for the housemaids at Longbourn House, and Sarah's hands are chapped and raw. Domestic life below stairs, ruled with a...
A story of the lives of the servants at Longbourn, the house of the Bennetts in Pride & Prejudice.
Emma
Alexander McCall Smith
Paper Book
'It's comfort reading at its most soothing' Independent 'Funny, heartfelt and very readable' Good Housekeeping In this reimagined modern classic, prepare to meet a young woman who thinks she knows everything... Fresh from university, Emma Woodhouse triumphantly...
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: A Novel
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
Paper Book
_______________ WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION WINNER OF THE LONDON HELLENIC PRIZE A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, EVENING STANDAND AND NEW YORK TIMES _______________...
A retelling of Sophocles's Antigone set among British Muslims.
Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis
Ali Smith
Paper Book
Girl meets boy. It's a story as old as time. But what happens when an old story meets a brand new set of circumstances? Ali Smith's remix of Ovid's most joyful metamorphosis is a story about the kind of fluidity that can't be bottled and sold. It is about girls and boys, girls and girls, love and...
Based on Ovid's story "Iphis and Ianthe" from his Metamorphoses.

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