Set during the time of the Napoleonic Wars, this classic gives a satirical picture of a worldly society. The novel revolves around the exploits of the impoverished but beautiful and devious Becky Sharp.
By
Fyodor Dostoevsky,
Constance Garnett (translator)
Narrated By
Charlton Griffin
Overall
(38)
Performance
(2)
Story
(2)
This magnificent novel is about the murder of a miserly, aged pawnbroker and her younger sister by a radical, destitute St. Petersburg student named Raskolnikov, and the emotional, mental, and physical effects that follow. It is a remarkable masterpiece about a man's turbulent inner life and his relationship to others and to society at large.
On the eve of his marriage to the beautiful Mercedes, having that very day been made captain of his ship, the young sailor Edmond Dantès is arrested on a charge of treason, trumped up by jealous rivals. Incarcerated for many lonely years in the isolated and terrifying Chateau d'If near Marseille, he meticulously plans his brilliant escape and extraordinary revenge.
The story is told by a young 'unknown soldier' in the trenches of Flanders during the First World War. Through his eyes we see all the realities of war; under fire, on patrol, waiting in the trenches, at home on leave, and in hospitals and dressing stations.
Stephen Fry Presents a Selection of Anton Chekhov's Short Stories
By
Anton Chekov
Narrated By
Stephen Fry
Overall
(33)
Performance
(1)
Story
(1)
"Chekhov is probably better known in Britain for his plays than for his prose. For many, however, it is his short stories that mark the high water of his genius. It might at first glance be hard for those not used to his style of narrative to see what the fuss is about - and fuss there is: for most authors and lovers of literature Chekhov is incomparably the greatest short story writer there ever was."
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is the classic working-class novel. It was written in 1906 by an impoverished house painter, Robert Tressell, and within its framework contains a manifesto for socialism. It tells of the appalling working conditions of a group of painters and decorators and their struggle to survive at the most basic level. It is moving, grimly humorous and tragic. It has sold over six million copies worldwide since it was published, and it has the power to change lives.
Swann's Way is the first volume of Marcel Proust's literary masterpiece, the multi-part novel Remembrance of Things Past. In this volume, the author recalls the youth of Charles Swann in the French town of Combray. Proust paints an unforgettable, scathing, and, at times, comic portrait of French society at the close of the19th century, and reveals a profound vision of obsessive love.
Narrated By
James Wilby,
Jonathan Firth,
Harriet Walter,
Imogen Stubbs,
Corin Redgrave
Overall
(21)
Performance
(0)
Story
(0)
Featuring a fictional version of himself - 'Marcel' - and a host of friends, acquaintances, and lovers, In Search of Lost Time is Proust's search for the key to the mysteries of memory, time, and consciousness. As he recalls his childhood days, the sad affair of Charles Swann and Odette de Crecy, his transition to manhood, the tortures of love and the ravages of war, he realises that the simplest of discoveries can lead to astonishing possibilities.
Narcissus and Goldmund is the story of a passionate yet uneasy friendship between two men of opposite character. Narcissus, an ascetic instructor at a cloister school, has devoted himself solely to scholarly and spiritual pursuits. One of his students is the sensual, restless Goldmund, who is immediately drawn to his teacher's fierce intellect and sense of discipline.
Ulysses is regarded by many as the single most important novel of the 20th century. It tells the story of one day in Dublin, June 16th 1904, largely through the eyes of Stephen Dedalus (Joyce's alter ego from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) and Leopold Bloom, an advertising salesman. Both begin a normal day, and both set off on a journey around the streets of Dublin, which eventually brings them into contact with one another.
The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas.
Published in 1844, it is often considered one of the great thrillers of all time and, along with The Three Musketeers, Dumas' most popular work.
Falsely accused of treason, the young sailor Edmund Dantes is arrested on his wedding day and imprisoned in the island fortress of the Chateau d'If. After staging a dramatic escape, he sets out to discover the treasure of Monte Cristo and catch up with his enemies.
Dracula is the seminal gothic horror novel of its time as Bram Stoker introduced the world to the legendary vampire Count Dracula. Published in 1897 and told through a series of diary entries and letters, the story journeys into the dark world of Count Dracula through the eyes of several different narrators. The novel explores many themes, the role of women in Victorian culture, conventional and conservative sexuality, immigration, colonialism, post colonialism and folklore.
Ulysses is regarded by many as the single most important novel of the 20th century. It tells the story of one day in Dublin, June 16th 1904, largely through the eyes of Stephen Dedalus (Joyce's alter ego from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) and Leopold Bloom, an advertising salesman. Both begin a normal day, and both set off on a journey around the streets of Dublin, which eventually brings them into contact with one another.
by
Miguel de Cervantes,
John Ormsby (translated by)
Narrated by
Roy McMillan
4.0
(72 ratings)
The most influential work of the entire Spanish literary canon and a founding work of modern Western literature, Don Quixote is also one of the greatest works ever written. Hugely entertaining but also moving at times, this episodic novel is built on the fantasy life of one Alonso Quixano, who lives with his niece and housekeeper in La Mancha. Quixano, obsessed by tales of knight errantry, renames himself 'Don Quixote' and with his faithful servant Sancho Panza, goes on a series of quests.
by
Fyodor Dostoevsky,
Constance Garnett (translator)
Narrated by
Charlton Griffin
4.4
(38 ratings)
This magnificent novel is about the murder of a miserly, aged pawnbroker and her younger sister by a radical, destitute St. Petersburg student named Raskolnikov, and the emotional, mental, and physical effects that follow. It is a remarkable masterpiece about a man's turbulent inner life and his relationship to others and to society at large.
Emma Bovary, a doctor's wife, seeks an escape from her dull life through having extra-marital affairs. Flaubert's novel scandalized its readers when it was first published in 1857, and it remains unsurpassed in its unveiling of character and society.
Set during the time of the Napoleonic Wars, this classic gives a satirical picture of a worldly society. The novel revolves around the exploits of the impoverished but beautiful and devious Becky Sharp.
A father and three of his seven children work brutal hours in a mine, facing hazards such as landslides, fire, and poisoned air, to scrape together enough money for food. When their lodger, Étienne, shares ideas about a workers' revolt, the family gradually embraces his plans. Soon the settlement is aflame with resolve to strike for better wages and working conditions. Savage and horrifying events ensue as miners clash with management and with each other.
The first authorized, unabridged release of this timeless classic and exclusively available from Recorded Books. Ulysses records the events of a single day, June 16, 1904, in Dublin, Ireland.
Set in 1872, Around the World in 80 Days tells the extraordinary and wonderful adventures of Phileas Fogg and his servant Passepartout, who set out to win a £20,000 bet to circumnavigate the globe in eighty days.
On the eve of his marriage to the beautiful Mercedes, having that very day been made captain of his ship, the young sailor Edmond Dantès is arrested on a charge of treason, trumped up by jealous rivals. Incarcerated for many lonely years in the isolated and terrifying Chateau d'If near Marseille, he meticulously plans his brilliant escape and extraordinary revenge.
This novel is the story of Dreyer, a wealthy and boisterous proprietor of a men's clothing emporium. Ruddy, self-satisfied, and thoroughly masculine, he is perfectly repugnant to his exquisite but cold middle-class wife, Martha. Attracted to his money but repelled by his oblivious passion, she longs for their nephew instead, the thin, awkward, myopic Franz. Newly arrived in Berlin, Franz soon repays his uncle's condescension in his aunt's bed.
Med råttorna kommer pesten, och Oran i Nordafrika blir en stad i belägringstillstånd. Isolerade från omvärlden är invånarna utlämnade åt varandra och åt skräcken. Men en liten grupp, med läkaren Bernard Rieux i spetsen, tar upp kampen mot pestens härjningar.
In The Idiot, a saintly man, Prince Myshkin, is thrust into the heart of a society more concerned with wealth, power, and sexual conquest than the ideals of Christianity. Myshkin soon finds himself at the center of a violent love triangle in which a notorious woman and a beautiful young girl become rivals for his affections. Extortion, scandal, and murder follow, testing the wreckage left by human misery to find "man in man."
Intense, compelling, beautifully descriptive - as Wuthering Heights is to the Yorkshire moors, so The Black Soul is to the Aran Islands. The sea roars dismally round the shores of Inverara. A stranger takes a room on the island. Here lives a couple whose married years have been joyless, until the presence of the stranger unleashes their passions.... For as spring softens the wild beauty of Inverara, the stranger becomes conscious of the dark-haired Mary - how summer makes her shiver with life. He is the first man she has ever loved, and she thrills with sexual awakening.
Kniga Moskva i moskvichi napisana Mikhailom Nikolayevichem Zagoskinym (1789 - 1852), avtorom izvestnykh istoricheskikh romanov Yuriy Miloslavskiy, Roslavlev, i mnogikh drugikh proizvedeniy. Moskva i moskvichi - eto zhivye i uvlekatel'nye ocherki, rasskazy, sceny iz domashnej i obschestvennoj moskovskoj zhizni. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.
When a young couple moves into their new home, they are taken aback by the strange behavior of their new landlord. While at first he bid them to do all of the fixing-up the home needed on their own, he quickly changed his tune and was persistent in his attempts to help them tackle some of the rooms himself. The source of his desire to help lies in the fact that the old tenant may have hidden a fortune within the walls - a fortune that winds up belonging to the young couple after all!
The Next Great War begins, and soon all Europe is involved. The war lasts a year - and then the women, robbed of husbands and sweethearts and sons, grow doubtful of the benefits of military policy, and begin to think that victory will come too late to do them any good. But what can they do? A remedy was discovered by Aristophanes about 2,350 years ago. It is re-discovered and reapplied. And it is again successful.
V romane Gospoda Golovlevy izobrazhena duhovnaya i fizicheskaya degradaciya dvoryanstva, kak opredelil sam avtor, «v techenie neskol'kih pokolenij tri harakteristicheskie cherty prohodili cherez istoriyu etogo semejstva: prazdnost', neprigodnost' k kakomu by to ni bylo delu i zapoj.» Sem'ya Golovlevyh - eto sobiratel'nyj hudozhestvennyj obraz, obobschivshij cherty byta, psihologii, vsego uklada zhizni pomeschikov nakanune i posle otmeny krepostnogo prava v 1861 godu.
Predstavlenoe proizvedeniya, napisannye A. S. Pushkinym v poslednie gody zhizni: Arap Petra Velikogo, Kirdzhali, Puteshestvie v Arzrum vo vremya pohoda 1829 g., Istoriya sela Goryuhina, Voobrazhaemyj razgovor s Aleksandrom I.
V povesti Hadzhi-Murat, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoj povestvuet o zhizni i smerti besstrashnogo i gordogo dzhigita Hadzhi-Murata, borca za svobodu kavkazskih gorcev i blizhajshego spodvizhnika Shamilya. Tragicheskaya sud'ba etogo nezauryadnogo cheloveka, vynuzhdennogo v konce koncov perejti v lager' protivnika, privlekla vnimanie pisatelya kak simvol velichajshej voli k zhizni.
V nej 16-letnij Kolya Irten'ev postupaet v universitet. On «yun, nevinen, svoboden i potomu pochti schastliv». Bogatyj mocional'nyj mir geroya, ego mechty o bol'shoj lyubvi, o buduschem supruzheskom schast'e, ego neobyknovennaya nravstvennaya chistota vyzyvayut k nemu goryachij interes i simpatiyu. Kniga slushaetsya kak otkroveniya ochen' blizkogo cheloveka.
Otcy i deti - odin iz samyh sil'nyh romanov I. S. Turgeneva, ch'ya «problemnost'», aktual'naya esche v XIX veke, ne utratila svoej yarkosti i sejchas. Vechnyj konflikt mezhdu molodost'yu, trebuyuschej peremen, i konservativnost'yu zrelogo vozrasta... Vechnoe protivostoyanie illyuzij - i real'nosti, intellekta - i mocij. I nakonec, krajne neobychnyj, ostryj vzglyad na myatuschuyusya, zagadochnuyu dushu russkogo intelligenta - v ego krajnej, nigilisticheskoj forme duhovnoj zhizni...
Smert Ivana Ilicha - povest' L. N. Tolstogo, nad kotoroj on rabotal s 1882 po 1886 gody, vnosya poslednie shtrihi uzhe na stadii korrektury. V proizvedenii rasskazyvaetsya o muchitel'nom umiranii sudejskogo chinovnika srednej ruki. Povest' shiroko priznana odnoj iz vershin mirovoj literatury i velichajshim sversheniem Tolstogo v oblasti maloj literaturnoj formy.
Obrativshis' k bogatstvu narodnoj mifologii, Gogol' sozdal proizvedenie, v kotorom ustrashayuschie, ledenyaschie krov' sceny sosedstvuyut s komicheskimi, proizvodya neizgladimoe vpechatlenie na chitatelya. Bursak-filosof Homa Brut kataet na sebe ved'mu i sam mchitsya na nej, zagnav ee do smerti.
A rich tale centred around the lives of Marjorie Fairfield, a beautiful and penniless young woman who is the mistress of a wealthy business man; and the symbolically named Ransom Heritage, one of the many young men who were cast adrift after the First World War ended and who has been abruptly deprived of a sense of purpose, ambition, and hope. Around these young people and their circle whirls the carefree society of fashionable postwar London - a raucous, glamorous, and perhaps slightly shrill world of cocktails and nightclubs, tea dances and illicit tête-à-têtes. Waugh depicts a frenetic society where all too many people are "kept" in some way.