Victor Frankenstein thinks he has found the secret of life. He takes parts from dead people and builds a new 'man'. But this monster is so big and frightening that everyone runs away from him - even Frankenstein himself! The monster is like an enormous baby who needs love. But nobody gives him love, and soon he learns to hate. And, because he is so strong, the next thing he learns is how to kill ...

Dartmoor. A wild, wet place in the south-west of England. A place where it is easy to get lost, and to fall into the soft green earth which can pull the strongest man down to his death. A man is running for his life. Behind him comes an enormous dog - a dog from his worst dreams, a dog from hell. Between him and a terrible death stands only one person - the greatest detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes.

Victor Frankenstein thinks he has found the secret of life. He takes parts from dead people and builds a new ‘man’. But this monster is so big and frightening that everyone runs away from him – even Frankenstein himself! The monster is like an enormous baby who needs love. But nobody gives him love, and soon he learns to hate. And, because he is so strong, the next thing he learns is how to kill…

Dartmoor. A wild, wet place in the south-west of England. A place where it is easy to get lost, and to fall into the soft green earth which can pull the strongest man down to his death. A man is running for his life. Behind him comes an enormous dog – a dog from his worst dreams, a dog from hell. Between him and a terrible death stands only one person – the greatest detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes.

Two visitors come to Sherlock Holmes’s London home in Baker Street to ask for the detective’s help. Holmes is interested in the story, but he sends his friend, Dr Watson, to Dartmoor to begin the investigation. Dartmoor is the dark and lonely place where Sir Charles Baskerville died – or was it murder? The clues are worrying, too. An enormous wild dog killed Sir Charles’s ancestor there a hundred and fifty years earlier. Suddenly, people hear terrible howls again on the moor!

A level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Rosemary BorderYou are walking through the streets of London. It is getting dark and you want to get home quickly. You enter a narrow side-street. Everything is quiet, but as you pass the door of a large, windowless building, you hear a key turning in the lock. A man comes out and looks at you. You have never seen him before, but you realize immediately that he hates you. You are shocked to discover,...

Written for Learners of English by John EscottScarlet is the colour of sin, and the letter A stands for Adultery. In the 1600s, in Boston, Massachusetts, love was allowed only between a husband and a wife. A child born outside marriage was a child of sin.Hester Prynne must wear the scarlet letter on her dress for the rest of her life. How can she ever escape from this public shame? What will happen to her child, growing up in the shadow of the scarlet letter? The future holds...

Retold for Learners of English by David PennOne winters day in 1673 young John Ridd is riding home from school, across the wild lonely hills of Exmoor. He has to pass Doone valley a dangerous place, as the Doones are famous robbers and murderers. All Exmoor lives in fear of the Doones.At home there is sad news waiting for young John, and he learns that he has good reason to hate the Doones. But in the years to come he meets Lorna Doone, with her lovely smile and big dark eyes...

Retold for Learners of English by Nick Bullard'I turned on the light, but there was nobody there. Then I saw something in the corner that made my blood turn cold. Scudder was lying on his back. There was a long knife through his heart, pinning him to the floor.'Soon Richard Hannay is running to his life across the hills of Scotland. The police are chasing him for a murder he did not do, and another, more dangerous enemy is chasing him as well - the mysterious 'Black Stone'. W...

Retold for Learners of English by Clare WestThe wind is strong on the Yorkshire moors. There are few trees, and fewer houses, to block its path. There is one house, however, that does not hide from the wind. It stands out from the hill and challenges the wind to do its worst. The house is called Wuthering Heights.When Mr Earnshaw brings a strange, small, dark child back home to Wuthering heights, it seems he has opened his doors to trouble. He has invited in something that, l...

Retold for Learners of English by Clare West'The moment I first met you, I noticed your pride, your sense of superiority, and your selfish disdain for the feelings of others. You are the last man in the world whom I could ever be persuaded to marry,' said Elizabeth Bennett.And so Elizabeth rejects the proud Mr Darcy. Can nothing overcome her prejudice against him? And what of the other Bennet girls - their fortunes, and misfortunes, in the business of getting husbands?...

Retold for Learners of English by Richard RogersLondon in the 1830s was no place to be if you were a hungry ten-year-old boy, an orphan without friends or family, with no home to go to, and only a penny in your pocket to buy a piece of bread.But Oliver Twist finds some friends - Fagin, the Artful Dodger, and Charley Bates. They give him food and shelter, and play games with him, but it is not until some days later that Oliver finds out what kind of friends they are and what k...