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.

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.

Dickens wrote into life some of the most beloved and well-known characters in the history of English literature, introducing us to Pip, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Little Nell, Scrooge, Nicholas Nickleby, Miss Haversham, and many more who have lived in the imagination of generations of readers and listeners. In this definitive and beautifully curated collection, you discover not only Dickens’s most loved classics, but also hear a short introduction to his life and body of work from Dr Pete Orford.

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.

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.

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.

In this classic Gothic suspense novel by Daphne du Maurier, a young woman marries a widower and discovers that more than just the memories of his deceased wife linger in their home. Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . . The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept...

After escaping from the dark and dismal workhouse where he was born, Oliver finds himself on the mean streets of Victorian-era London and is unwittingly recruited into a scabrous gang of scheming urchins. In this band of petty thieves, Oliver encounters the extraordinary and vibrant characters who have captured audiences' imaginations for more than 150 years.

Born into the shadows of Victorian London, Oliver Twist’s fight for dignity and belonging still hits hard today. This refreshed edition, adapted for modern readers, keeps Charles Dickens’s unforgettable story intact while smoothing outdated phrasing, untangling long sentences, and presenting clean, contemporary typography. The result is an accessible, page-turning experience that honors the original voice and atmosphere, making it easier than ever to fall into Dickens’s world without stumbling over archaic language or cluttered formatting. Step into the grim workhouses, crowded ...

Rhys Bowen on G.M. Malliet's DEATH OF A COZY WRITER: "The traditional British cozy is alive and well. Delicious. I was hooked from the first paragraph." A wedding on the picturesque cliffs of Devon should have been a joyful occasion, although it was a location said to have inspired Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun. But when the groom is found dead just hours before the ceremony, the celebration turns into a baffling mystery the groom’s best man feels duty bound to solve. As he delves into the tangled past of the bride, the groom, and their circle of family and friends, he soon ...

Oliver, a kind-hearted orphan, navigates the tough streets of London, meeting both danger and kindness as he searches for a better life.

Welcome to Pig Meadow, where home construction meets comedy in the most spectacularly disastrous way possible. Percy, Pete, and Pablo aren’t just three little pigs—they’re DIY dreamers with wildly different building styles, zero building permits, and one very curious wolf watching from the sidelines. From sagging straw walls to stick structures held together by duct tape, and a brick fortress complete with a pizza oven, these pigs are about to learn that a good house isn’t just about what you build… it’s about who’s inside when the wind starts to blow. Packed with laugh-out-...

The Charles Dickens Collection: 10 Novels & A Christmas Carol brings together all of the major novels written during Dickens' lifetime. Dickens wrote into life some of the most beloved and well-known characters in literature - introducing us to Pip, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Little Nell, Scrooge, Nicholas Nickleby, Miss Haversham, and many more who have lived long in the memory for generations of listeners.

Edward Harlow is a man consumed by bitterness and regret, a ghost of his former self. Once filled with promise and potential, Edward now spends his days isolated in a crumbling Victorian house, sneering at the joy and hope of Christmas. To him, the holiday is nothing but a cruel reminder of everything he’s lost—opportunities squandered, relationships destroyed, and a life wasted chasing ambition and selfish desires. But on this fateful Christmas Eve, Edward’s carefully constructed walls begin to crumble when he’s visited by a ghostly presence unlike any he’s ever encountered. The ...

They say a kiss will wake the sleeping princess. They say it will break the curse. They are wrong. For a hundred years, the kingdom of Eldoria has slept, encased in a continent-spanning forest of thorns. Knights, armies, and heroes have all tried to breach the impossible woods. All have failed, their corpses now part of the ever-growing landscape. Inside the silent castle, Princess Aurelia is not dreaming of true love. She is dreaming of hunger. Tormented by phantoms in her century of slumber, she has been twisted into the very thing the kingdom feared. The curse is not on her; the curse is...

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.

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...

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.

Born to an unmarried woman who dies after giving birth, orphan Oliver Twist seems destined to slog through a dismal life in the workhouse. A rebellious cry for more gets Oliver banished, and ultimately lands him on the dismal streets of London. The young outcast finds refuge with Fagin and his band of thieves before fate intervenes and puts Oliver in the hands of a kindly benefactor. It is likely that Dickens's own early youth as a child labourer contributed to the story's development.

O. Henry wrote many stories, but this, the story of two "ultimate gifts", is his most famous.