6 Classic Story Retellings That Reimagine Everything

Did you watch Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and wish the entire film was about Samantha Morton’s Circe and her turning gross men into pigs? Then you need to read Madeline Miller’s startlingly good take on the story of Greek mythology’s most infamous witch.

Circe, daughter of the House of Helios, is powerful beyond compare. Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her craft and crosses paths with many figures from Greek myth, from the Minotaur to Odysseus. As she grows in strength, not even the gods themselves will be able to change her ways.

Jane Eyre is one of the undisputed classics of English literature, but the story of the madwoman in the attic has long inspired discourse over the benevolence of Mr. Rochester. Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea offers a prequel to the tale that gives life to the woman who was the first Mrs. Rochester, and all through a scathing anti-colonialist lens.

Antoinette Cosway, a free-spirited young woman who lives in Jamaica, is the daughter of former slaveowners. In desperate need of money, her family sells her into marriage with Rochester, whose initial charms soon give way to a cruelty that will drive her to mental ruin.

What happened after Lizzie Bennet married Mr. Darcy? Their happy ever after was briefly spoiled by an unexpected murder. It is 1803, six years since they wed, and they have two lovely sons, Fitzwilliam and Charles. Elizabeth’s sister Jane and her husband, Bingley, live nearby. Georgiana is looking for a good match. And then, on the eve of the autumn ball, the scheming Wickham, Lydia's husband, turns up out of the blue and uninvited. In the nearby woods, a man is found dead and Wickham is the only suspect. It falls upon Lizzie to discover the truth. 

Did you ever read about the six wives of Henry VIII and think they all deserved way better than that jerk? Karen E. Olson is way ahead of you with this cheeky but gripping modern mystery that transports the Tudor drama to the current day.

Kate Parker knows what she’s getting into when she marries billionaire businessman Hank Tudor. How can she not when she's wife number six? But she's unprepared for the headless body near Hank's Summer home. Now, she must uncover the truth, even if it means teaming up with Catherine Alvarez, ex-wife number one, and Anna Klein, the fourth one. What is Hank up to? Are his kids, Lizzie and Teddy, involved as well? And will Kate get to the end of this marriage with her head still on her shoulders?

Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear is transported to Iowa farm country of the early ‘90s in this Pulitzer Prize-winning drama.

Larry Cook announces his intention to turn over his farm, one of the largest in Zebulon County, Iowa, to his three daughters, Caroline, Ginny, and Rose. When Caroline doesn't seem grateful enough for his liking, he cuts her from the deal and sinks into a state of drunken bitterness.

Larry's daughters, forever left to clean up his mess, must find a way to reconcile family and business, all while dealing with scheming husbands, cutthroat lenders, and the realities of running the farm that has dominated their lives from birth.

Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel takes inspiration from the life and works of Virginia Woolf, weaving together the lives of three women, including Woolf herself. In the 1920s, Woolf struggles to finish her latest novel while dealing with the scourge of mental illness. In 1940s Los Angeles, a young wife and mother seeks freedom from her stifling domestic life through the magic of Woolf's book Mrs. Dalloway. 50 years later in New York City, another woman goes to buy the flowers for the party she's throwing in honor of her friend Richard, an award-winning poet who is suffering from AIDS.

Moving across time and location, The Hours shows how womanhood, creativity, and progress are ideas hard fought for and carry a heavy legacy.