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.
The Hours
Michael Cunningham
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
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
This is the book that started it all! The basis for the smash hit Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Gregory Maguire's breathtakingNew York Times bestseller
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
The multi-million copy number one bestseller One of The Sunday Times's top 100 bestselling books of the past 50 years Welcome to Bridget's first diary: mercilessly funny, endlessly touching and utterly addictive. A dazzlingly urban satire on modern...
Roughly based on Jane Austen's 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.
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
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 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.
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
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
Jean Rhys
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
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...
Alice
Christina Henry
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...
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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