Twisted Classics

When young orphan, Oliver Twist, is sold into an apprenticeship with an undertaker, he leaves behind years of miserable servitude and mistreatment at an English workhouse. Hoping to move on to better things, he decides to escape his new, equally dreary surroundings and head to London. It is there that the novel unravels as Oliver meets a host of larger-than-life characters, including The Artful Dodger, a high-ranking member of a juvenile pickpocketing gang, and their elderly leader, Fagin.

Step back into the stories you thought you knew... and discover the darkness beneath. In Dark Fairy Tales Reimagined: 20 Twisted Versions of Classic Tales, beloved fairy tales are transformed into haunting, unsettling stories where magic comes at a price—and happy endings are never guaranteed. A glass slipper binds its wearer to a cursed fate. A hidden kingdom dances to keep an ancient evil asleep. A simple lie twists a boy into something no longer human. These are not the fairy tales of childhood. Each story drags familiar characters into shadowy worlds filled with betrayal, horror, and ...

A workhouse orphan, Oliver experiences the terror and brutality of the criminal underworld. His companions, a thief, a whore, a pickpocket, and a fence, are destined for gruesome ends, but Oliver emerges unscathed from the darkness of the underworld.

Orphaned at birth, Oliver Twist is born into the grimmest of 19th century English workhouses with a life of grinding poverty ahead of him. But the boy is a fighter and after being evicted from the workhouse for asking for 'more' and surviving a stint as an undertaker’s assistant, he walks many miles to London and finds a whole new life with a gang of young pickpockets led by the Artful Dodger and their guardian Fagin.

The Ultimate Classics Collection: Volume Five is the fifth instalment of our wide-ranging classic collections. Volume Five features 14 essential works that reach across Europe, America, and Russia - from Twain to Dostoyevsky to Austen - to bring together some of the most influential authors of the 18th and 19th century. Read by a cast of incredible narrators, this is a chance to expand your listening by going deeper into some of your favourite authors' works and find your new favourite piece of classic literature.

To live happily harem after, you have to fight for your fairy tale. Five classic fairy tales take on a reverse harem* twist in the first installment of Happily Harem After. Experience Alice in Wonderland, The Four Clever Brothers, Beauty and the Beast, Peter Pan, and Cinderella in ways you never have before.

"It’s a welcome surprise to read this careful look by a music historian at Graceland, Paul Simon’s 1986 masterpiece: By bringing both its beauty and its uglier aspects into the light, Kahn, far from ruining the album’s strange magic, lets readers appreciate its intricacies and paradoxes...

Step into the fog-draped streets of Victorian London and join Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson in this compelling collection of ten mystery stories filled with hidden motives, baffling clues, and dangerous secrets. From whispered scandals in drawing rooms to strange disappearances, coded messages, stolen documents, and murders cloaked in respectability, each case draws Holmes deeper into the shadowy corners of London society. With razor-sharp logic, keen observation, and Watson at his side, Holmes must untangle mysteries that test both intellect and nerve. Perfect for readers who love ...

The multi million copy bestseller that has enthralled generations of readers. A haunting tale of obsessive love. A mesmerizing psychological thriller. In Monte Carlo, our unnamed heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned...

Daphne du Maurier's classic novel of lust, suspicion, and obsession that inspired major motion picture starring Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin. Orphaned at an early age, Philip Ashley is raised by his benevolent older cousin, Ambrose. Resolutely single, Ambrose delights in Philip as his heir, and...

La historia del pequeño Oliver, criado en un hospicio, empleado en una funeraria y reclutado por una banda de ladrones que él no reconoce como tales, no solo es un soberbio escaparate de celebérrimas creaciones dickensianas, sino que además resulta un magnífico y apasionante relato sobre la inocencia acosada. Los distintos personajes que el héroe va encontrando en su camino nos descubren al Dickens idílico y sentimental, en una de las muestras más perdurables de su genio.

Raised by vampyre relatives, Jane grows to resent the lifestyle's effect on her upbringing. No sunlight, nighttime hours, and a diet of bloody red meat is no way for a mortal girl to live. Things change for Jane when the ghost of her uncle visits her, imparts her parents' slayer history, and charges her with the responsibility of striking out to find others of her kind and learn the slayer ways.

Oliver Twist, Dickens’ second novel, has enthralled generations of readers since its publication in 1838. Orphaned and desolate, Oliver’s journey to London and subsequent induction into its dingy underworld, is narrated with ceaseless energy by Jonathan Keeble. His depictions of Fagin and the terrifying Bill Sikes are particularly mesmerizing, and his reading is infused with a delicious knack for storytelling.

It’s rumoured that Dickens wanted to return to his classic novel Oliver Twist, to bring him back into a later book as an older character, but he never managed this before he died. However, if Oliver had returned, what would he have been like? Would the scars of his childhood affect the man he would become? And what of ‘Dodger’, sent to a land halfway around the world, his friend, mentor and master dead because of Oliver? Dodge & Twist is that story. The tale of two boys, 12 years later, returning into each other’s lives - for both good and bad.

The first social-protest novel in the English language. Dickens at twenty-five, writing the book that made him impossible to ignore. In 1837 a young parliamentary reporter began publishing, in monthly instalments, the story of a workhouse orphan who walks ninety miles from a country poorhouse to the slums of London. The Poor Law of 1834 had recently codified into policy the conviction that poverty was a moral failing best disciplined by hunger; Oliver Twist answered that policy with a child, a name, and the most famous request in English fiction: "Please, sir, I want some more." It made ...

The tower has fallen. The golden hair is severed. Freedom, at last, stretches wide before her—but it is nothing like the dream. Rapunzel steps into a world that offers no gentle welcome. Alone, scarred, and carrying truths that burn, she must learn to survive the wild that once seemed so inviting from her high window. Beside her, the man who heard her song pays a devastating price for his courage, forcing both to confront what remains when magic fades and only human strength endures. This gripping conclusion weaves heartbreak with quiet triumph, exploring the fragile line between ...

When seven murder victims are found in a small town, the homicide investigation shakes a small-town sheriff to her core in James Patterson's tense thriller. Once a luxurious southern getaway on a rustic lake, then reduced to a dilapidated crash pad, the Summer House is now the grisly scene of a...

Discover one of the most powerful stories in English literature — now in easy Spanish! This A2 Pre-Intermediate Edition of Oliver Twist is designed for Spanish learners: ✅ Short, clear sentences ✅ Simple vocabulary adapted to your level ✅ An exciting story full of action and emotions Follow Oliver, a brave orphan, from the harsh life of a workhouse to the dangerous streets of London. Meet thieves, lies, betrayal… but also friendship, justice, and hope. This is not a literal translation, but a carefully rewritten version to help you learn Spanish naturally and enjoyably. Read. ...

A fake engagement. A deadly secret. A killer who believes love is the perfect disguise. When wealthy widower Geoffrey Marchmont is poisoned just days before rewriting his will, suspicion falls on everyone closest to him—from his much younger fiancée to the family member determined to protect their inheritance. But Miss Jane Marple quickly realizes the murder may have little to do with romance and everything to do with a long-buried secret someone has guarded for thirty years. Or maybe the two are connected? To draw out the killer, Miss Marple and her longtime friend Sir Alec Hadley ...

A tornado swept her away… But the real nightmare begins when she lands. In this chilling reimagining of the classic tale, twelve-year-old Dorothy Gale finds herself not in a land of wonder—but a broken world of shadows, blood-soaked bricks, and things that whisper in the dark. Her only guide is the silver shimmer of cursed shoes and a loyal dog who won’t leave her side. As she journeys across a twisted Oz, she encounters monstrous versions of old friends: a scarecrow with mushrooms growing from his stitched skull, a tin man leaking black ichor from a door in his chest, and a lion with...