Plainly

Jane Austen · Pride and Prejudice

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Plain English

Everyone knows that a single man with a lot of money needs a wife.

The ten classics readers open most.

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Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Herman Melville

Original: Grade 1015½ hrs

Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare

Original: Grade 82 hrs

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson

Original: Grade 92 hrs

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll

Original: Grade 72 hrs

Find a book at the right level

Every Plain English rewrite reads at about grade 8. Pick how hard you want the original to be.

Grades 3–5

Easy originals

3 books → Grades 6–8

Old words, simple prose

32 books → Grades 9–10

Harder originals

19 books → Grades 11–12+

Dense prose

11 books →

How we grade books →

Summary

Chapters in Plain English

Find your next classic

Plain English versions are written for about a grade 8 reader. The reading level on each book is the original’s — the published ATOS level schools use — so you can see how big a step Plain English is. How we grade books

How we grade books

Plain English: grade 8

Every rewrite aims at a grade 8 reader (about ages 13–14): sentences of 15–20 words, everyday words for old ones like thou, ere or countenance, and nothing left out. 69 of 90 books have one so far; the rest are marked Original only.

The original’s level

The ATOS book level of the original text, from Renaissance, the measure behind Accelerated Reader in US schools: 7.4 means a typical 7th grader, four months into the year. It’s what you face reading the original, or when a class assigns it. AR BookFinder

Age fit

How hard a book is to read isn’t how mature it is. AR Interest Levels say who a book’s themes suit, and Plain English doesn’t change them: Dracula is for ages 14+.

Assigned in school

Books named as grade-level text exemplars in the Common Core State Standards, the texts many US classes are built around. Appendix B

Why not score Plain English with a formula like Flesch–Kincaid? We tried. It only counts sentence and syllable lengths, so it can’t see old words like thou: it barely tells a rewrite from its original, and rates Romeo and Juliet at grade 3. So we give the grade Plain English is written for, and the original’s published level.

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Frankenstein

Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Pride and Prejudice

A Christmas Carol in Prose

Romeo and Juliet

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

A Room with a View

A Tale of Two Cities

Dracula

Find a book at the right level

Summary

Chapters in Plain English

About the author

Full Summary —

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Find your next classic

Plain English: grade 8

The original’s level

Age fit

Assigned in school

Your Library

Continue Reading

Finished

Classics, minus the confusion.

Continue reading

Start here

Frankenstein

Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Pride and Prejudice

A Christmas Carol in Prose

Romeo and Juliet

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

A Room with a View

A Tale of Two Cities

Dracula

Find a book at the right level

Summary

Chapters in Plain English

About the author

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Full Summary —

Full Summary

Plain English: grade 8

The original’s level

Age fit

Assigned in school

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