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
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
Uzma Jalaluddin
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
Zadie Smith
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
Michael Cunningham
Paper Book
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel becomes a motion picture starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman, directed by Stephen Daldry from a screenplay by David Hare The Hours tells the story of three women: Virginia Woolf, beginning to write Mrs. Dalloway as...
Three women of different generations whose lives are interconnected by Mrs Dalloway.
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-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
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
Helen Fielding
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
Seth Grahame-Smith
Paper Book
TheNew York Timesbest selleris now a major motion picture starring Lily James and Sam Riley, with Matt Smith, Charles Dance, and Lena Headey. Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses,Pride and Prejudice and Zombies<...
Inspired, of course, by Pride & Prejudice.
Sansei and Sensibility
Karen Tei Yamashita
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.
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
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
Madeline Miller
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
Jasper Fforde
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The first novel in the renowned Thursday Next series, which "combines elements of Monty Python, Harry Potter, Stephen Hawking, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (The Wall Street Journal). "A literary wonderland [that] recalls...
Set in an alternative 1985, where the protagonist pursues a master criminal through the world of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.
Meg and Jo
Virginia Kantra
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
Lyndsay Faye
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
Lisa Klein
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
Jodi Lynn Anderson
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...
By the Book
Julia Sonneborn
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
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
Tracy Chevalier
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
Ian McEwan
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.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Tom Stoppard
Paper Book
A new, beautiful updated edition of Tom Stoppard's best-loved play and one of Grove Atlantic's bestselling backlist titles, published with a new introduction by Tom Stoppard to coincide with the 50th anniversary of its debut Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is one of the...
Fool
Christopher Moore
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 hilarious new take on...
The story of King Lear's Fool
March
Geraldine Brooks
Paper Book
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...
Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys
Paper Book
The fortieth anniversary reissue of the best-selling "tour de force" (Walter Allen, New York Times Book Review).
A feminist prequel to Jane Eyre
Mr. Rochester
Sarah Shoemaker
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
Janice Hadlow
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
Jo Baker
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
Alexander McCall Smith
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
Jeanette Winterson
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
Ahmed Saadawi
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
Kamila Shamsie
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
Ursula K. Le Guin
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
Ali Smith
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.
Grendel
John Gardner
Paper Book
This classic and much lauded retelling of Beowulf follows the monster Grendel as he learns about humans and fights the war at the center of the Anglo Saxon classic epic. "An extraordinary achievement."--New York Times The first and most...
The retelling of the Old English poem Beowulf from the perspective of the antagonist, Grendel.
Alice
Christina Henry
Paper Book
From the national bestselling author of Ghost Tree comes a mind-bending novel inspired by the twisted and wondrous works of Lewis Carroll... In a warren of crumbling buildings and desperate people called the Old City, there stands a hospital with cinderblock walls which...
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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