Funny Classic Literature

Gothic romance at its most unhinged—now without the Victorian sentence structure from hell. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete original story—same plot, same characters, same emotional devastation—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the moors, revenge, and toxic romance, zero Victorian torture. Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff are obsessed with each other in the most destructive way possible—think soulmates if soulmates were also each other's worst enemies. They grew up together on the ...

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A contemporary literary classic and "an accomplished psychological thriller ... absolutely chilling" (Village Voice), from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Goldfinch. Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric...

Fairy tales with teeth: brutal, bloody, and hilariously sweary retellings of the original Grimm classics. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete, original stories—same plots, same twisted morals, same body horror—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the dark fairy tale chaos, zero sanitized Disney bullshit. Cinderella's stepsisters cut off their own heels and toes to fit the glass slipper. Hansel and Gretel get abandoned in the woods, find a witch's candy house, and burn her alive in her own oven. Snow ...

One boy’s invented word becomes a phenomenon beyond his control in bestselling and award-winning author Andrew Clements’s hilarious classic children’s story about creative thought and the power of language. Is Nick Allen a troublemaker? He really just likes to liven things up at...

An out-of-work actor accepts the role of a lifetime—sitting soundlessly in a lecture theater, zipped into a large leather bag—to aid a professor’s psychological experiment. What could possibly go wrong? In Luke Kennard’s audacious new novel, a penniless and out-of-work actor picks up a...

In Leonard Wibberley's classic political satire, a tiny backwards country decides the only way to survive a sudden economic downturn is to declare war on the United States and lose to get foreign aid - but things don't go according to plan. The Mouse That Roared was made into a successful feature film starring Peter Sellers. Books in The Grand Fenwick Series: Books 2 through 5 are best read after The Mouse That Roared, but all of the books can be read and enjoyed at any point in the series. Book 1: The Mouse That Roared Book 2: The Mouse On The Moon Book 3: The Mouse On Wall Street Book 4: ...

Now celebrating the 42nd anniversary of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, soon to be a Hulu original series! “Douglas Adams is a terrific satirist.”—The Washington Post Book World Facing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons? Time for a cup of tea! Join the cosmically...

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION ● EDGAR AWARD NOMINEE FOR BEST NOVEL ● A thrilling reimagining of the world of Charles Dickens, as seen through the eyes of the infamous Jacob Fagin, London’s most gifted pickpocket, liar, and rogue. "Fagin the Thief takes one of...

Bram Stoker's vampire masterpiece—minus the formal Victorian letters that read like legal documents. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete, unabridged original story—same plot, same characters, same emotional devastation—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the Gothic horror, zero epistolary Victorian torture. Jonathan Harker is a young lawyer who travels to Transylvania for what should be a simple real estate transaction with a mysterious count. Instead, he discovers his client is an ancient vampire...

Lewis Carroll's surreal fantasy masterpiece—minus the part where you're not sure if any of this is supposed to make sense. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete, unabridged original story—same plot, same characters, same emotional devastation—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the absurdist wonder, zero Victorian torture. Alice is having the most boring afternoon of her life when she spots a talking white rabbit in a waistcoat sprinting past her, panicking about being late. Being a curious kid with...

For once, a novel that isn’t about the heroine getting the guy. It’s about getting rid of the guy, and in the process, finding herself. Helen is nearly forty, and has, for far too long, had an affair with Matthew, a high-powered, much older, attractive, married man who was once, of course...

Now celebrating the 42nd anniversary of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, soon to be a Hulu original series! “Wild satire . . . The feckless protagonist, Arthur Dent, is reminiscent of Vonnegut heroes.”—Chicago Tribune The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking...

Sally Jay Gorce is a woman with a mission. It’s the 1950s, she’s young, and she’s in Paris. Having dyed her hair pink, she wears evening dresses in the daytime and vows to go native in a way not even the natives can manage. Embarking on an educational program that includes an affair with a married man (which fizzles out when she realizes he’s single and wants to marry her); nights in cabarets and jazz clubs in the company of assorted “citizens of the world”; an entanglement with a charming psychopath; and a bit part in a film financed by a famous matador.

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time "[One morning] in the early spring, I woke up with the remembrance of a girl I'd once known, Sophie. It was a very vivid half-dream, half-revelation, and all of a sudden I realized that hers was a story I had to tell." That...

One of Faulkner's comic masterpieces, The Reivers is a picaresque that tells of three unlikely car thieves from rural Mississippi. Eleven-year-old Lucius Priest is persuaded by Boon Hogganbeck, one of his family's retainers, to steal his grandfather's car and make a trip to Memphis. The Priest's...

Shakespeare's iconic tragedy—minus the part where you pretend iambic pentameter is easy to understand. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete original story—same plot, same characters, same emotional devastation—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the star-crossed romance and family feuds, zero Elizabethan torture. Romeo Montague is dramatically depressed over a girl who won't give him the time of day, so naturally his friends drag him to a party thrown by his family's sworn enemies, the Capulets. ...

Shakespeare’s legendary tragedy—minus the part where you spend four hours wondering why this guy won't just make up his damn mind. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete original story—same plot, same characters, same emotional devastation—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the Danish royal drama, zero torture. Prince Hamlet is having a terrible month. His dad died under suspicious circumstances, his mom married his uncle approximately five minutes after the funeral, and now his dad’s ghost is ...

In the vein of Downton Abbey, Jane Austen's beloved but unfinished masterpiece--often considered her most modern and exciting novel--gets a spectacular second act in this tie-in to a major new limited television series. Written only months before Austen's death in 1817, Sanditon tells the story...

It’s easy to get disheartened when your planet has been blown up, the woman you love has vanished due to a misunderstanding about space/time, the spaceship you are on crashes on a remote and Bob-fearing planet, and all you have to fall back on are a few simple sandwich-making skills. However...

Magic portrait. Eternal youth. Infinite bad decisions. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete, unabridged original story—same plot, same characters, same emotional devastation—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the hedonistic excess, zero Victorian witticisms. Dorian Gray is a stunning 20-year-old who catches painter Basil Hallward's eye. Enter Lord Henry Wotton, professional corrupter, who convinces Dorian that youth and beauty are the only things that matter—and that morality is for suckers. When ...