Listen free for 30 days
-
The Streets
- Narrated by: Ben Elliot
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Historical Fiction
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Buy Now for £17.39
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
London, Burning
- By: Anthony Quinn
- Narrated by: Olivia Dowd
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, Burning is a novel about the end of the 1970s and the end of an era. It concerns a nation divided against itself, a government trembling on the verge of collapse, a city fearful of what is to come and a people bitterly suspicious of one another. In other words, it is also a novel about now. Vicky Tress is a young policewoman on the rise who becomes involved in a corruption imbroglio with CID. Hannah Strode is an ambitious young reporter with a speciality for skewering the rich and powerful.
-
-
Not Challenging
- By C. Milton on 08-03-22
-
Eureka
- By: Anthony Quinn
- Narrated by: Kim Hicks
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sex, drugs, cinema and stardom in a glorious technicolour romp through London's Swinging '60s. Summer, 1967. As London shimmers in a heat haze and swoons to the sound of Sgt. Pepper, a mystery film - Eureka - is being shot by German wunderkind Reiner Werther Kloss. The screenwriter, Nat Fane, would do anything for a hit but can't see straight for all the acid he's dropping.
-
Mrs Whistler
- By: Matthew Plampin
- Narrated by: Jessica Ball
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chelsea, 1876: Jimmy Whistler stands on the cusp of fame, ready to astound the London art world with his radical paintings. At his side is Maud Franklin, his muse, lover and occasional pupil, sharing his house, his dazzling social life and his grand hopes for the future. But Jimmy’s rebelliousness comes at a heavy price for them both as he battles a furious patron, challenges an influential and viciously hostile critic and struggles with a dire lack of cash. Before long a fight for survival is being waged through the galleries, the drawing rooms and even the courts - and Maud, Jimmy’s Madame and closest ally, is expected to do her part.
-
Half of the Human Race
- By: Anthony Quinn
- Narrated by: Roger May
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the sweltering summer of 1911, suffragette Connie Callaway is introduced to Will Maitland, cricketer and rising star of his county. Despite parting on uncertain terms, they are destined to meet again, their lives inextricably entangled. Combining national drama and private tragedy, this is a story of love, sacrifice, suffrage and county cricket, projected against a vivid backdrop of England in an extraordinary age of turmoil and violence.
-
-
A great listen
- By john on 17-10-21
-
Our Friends in Berlin
- By: Anthony Quinn
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1941. The city is in blackout, besieged by nightly air raids from Germany. Two strangers are about to meet. Between them they may alter the course of the war. While the Blitz has united the nation, there is an enemy hiding in plain sight. A group of British citizens is gathering secret information to aid Hitler’s war machine. Jack Hoste has become entangled in this treachery, but he also has a particular mission: to locate the most dangerous Nazi agent in the country.
-
-
Complete Mess
- By will h on 24-08-18
-
The Sixth Victim
- By: Tessa Harris
- Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham, Gemma Dawson
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The foggy streets of London's Whitechapel district have become a nocturnal hunting ground for Jack the Ripper, and no woman is safe. Flower girl Constance Piper is not immune to dread, but she is more preoccupied with her own strange experiences of late. Clairvoyants seem to be everywhere these days. In desperation, even Scotland Yard has turned to them to help apprehend the Ripper.
-
-
Poor reading marrs a decent storyline
- By Bellscats on 31-01-22
-
London, Burning
- By: Anthony Quinn
- Narrated by: Olivia Dowd
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, Burning is a novel about the end of the 1970s and the end of an era. It concerns a nation divided against itself, a government trembling on the verge of collapse, a city fearful of what is to come and a people bitterly suspicious of one another. In other words, it is also a novel about now. Vicky Tress is a young policewoman on the rise who becomes involved in a corruption imbroglio with CID. Hannah Strode is an ambitious young reporter with a speciality for skewering the rich and powerful.
-
-
Not Challenging
- By C. Milton on 08-03-22
-
Eureka
- By: Anthony Quinn
- Narrated by: Kim Hicks
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sex, drugs, cinema and stardom in a glorious technicolour romp through London's Swinging '60s. Summer, 1967. As London shimmers in a heat haze and swoons to the sound of Sgt. Pepper, a mystery film - Eureka - is being shot by German wunderkind Reiner Werther Kloss. The screenwriter, Nat Fane, would do anything for a hit but can't see straight for all the acid he's dropping.
-
Mrs Whistler
- By: Matthew Plampin
- Narrated by: Jessica Ball
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chelsea, 1876: Jimmy Whistler stands on the cusp of fame, ready to astound the London art world with his radical paintings. At his side is Maud Franklin, his muse, lover and occasional pupil, sharing his house, his dazzling social life and his grand hopes for the future. But Jimmy’s rebelliousness comes at a heavy price for them both as he battles a furious patron, challenges an influential and viciously hostile critic and struggles with a dire lack of cash. Before long a fight for survival is being waged through the galleries, the drawing rooms and even the courts - and Maud, Jimmy’s Madame and closest ally, is expected to do her part.
-
Half of the Human Race
- By: Anthony Quinn
- Narrated by: Roger May
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the sweltering summer of 1911, suffragette Connie Callaway is introduced to Will Maitland, cricketer and rising star of his county. Despite parting on uncertain terms, they are destined to meet again, their lives inextricably entangled. Combining national drama and private tragedy, this is a story of love, sacrifice, suffrage and county cricket, projected against a vivid backdrop of England in an extraordinary age of turmoil and violence.
-
-
A great listen
- By john on 17-10-21
-
Our Friends in Berlin
- By: Anthony Quinn
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1941. The city is in blackout, besieged by nightly air raids from Germany. Two strangers are about to meet. Between them they may alter the course of the war. While the Blitz has united the nation, there is an enemy hiding in plain sight. A group of British citizens is gathering secret information to aid Hitler’s war machine. Jack Hoste has become entangled in this treachery, but he also has a particular mission: to locate the most dangerous Nazi agent in the country.
-
-
Complete Mess
- By will h on 24-08-18
-
The Sixth Victim
- By: Tessa Harris
- Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham, Gemma Dawson
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The foggy streets of London's Whitechapel district have become a nocturnal hunting ground for Jack the Ripper, and no woman is safe. Flower girl Constance Piper is not immune to dread, but she is more preoccupied with her own strange experiences of late. Clairvoyants seem to be everywhere these days. In desperation, even Scotland Yard has turned to them to help apprehend the Ripper.
-
-
Poor reading marrs a decent storyline
- By Bellscats on 31-01-22
-
Curtain Call
- By: Anthony Quinn
- Narrated by: Lucy Paterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a sultry afternoon in 1936, a woman accidentally interrupts an attempted murder in a London hotel room. Nina Land, a West End actress, faces a dilemma: She's not supposed to be at the hotel and certainly not with a married man. But once it becomes apparent that she may have seen the face of the man the newspapers have dubbed "the Tie-Pin Killer", she realises that other people’s lives could be at stake.
-
-
character addiction.
- By Ms. C. M. O'meara on 15-05-16
-
Freya
- By: Anthony Quinn
- Narrated by: Kim Hicks
- Length: 17 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once again Anthony Quinn shows himself a master at writing fiction that works on every level. London, May 1945. Freya Wyley, 20, meets Nancy Holdaway, 18, amid the wild celebrations of VE Day, the prelude to a devoted and competitive friendship that will endure on and off for the next two decades.
-
-
Wonderful story, marvellous performance!
- By Abigail W. on 31-03-16
-
Silverview
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Toby Jones
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Julian Lawndsley has renounced his high-flying job in the City for a simpler life running a bookshop in a small English seaside town. But only a couple of months into his new career, Julian's evening is disrupted by a visitor. Edward, a Polish émigré living in Silverview, the big house on the edge of town, seems to know a lot about Julian's family and is rather too interested in the inner workings of his modest new enterprise. When a letter turns up at the door of a spy chief in London warning him of a dangerous leak, the investigations lead him to this quiet town by the sea.
-
-
A fitting finale
- By Amazon Customer on 24-10-21
-
The Promise
- By: Damon Galgut
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The many voices of The Promise tell a story in four snapshots, each one centered on a family funeral, each one happening in a different decade. In the background, a different president is in power, and a different spirit hangs over the country, while in the foreground the family fights over what they call their farm, on a worthless piece of land outside Pretoria. Over large jumps in time, people get older, faces and laws and lives all change, while a brother and sister circle around a promise made long ago and never kept....
-
-
Difficult experience
- By #carylreads on 23-07-21
-
The Captain's Table
- By: Brian Thompson
- Narrated by: Margaret Holt
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1875. At Lady Cornford’s famous soiree (sugared almonds and tittle-tattle) everyone is gossiping about Henry Ellis Margam’s latest hit, The Widow’s Secret. Only a few people know that one of Lady C’s guests, the enigmatic Bella Wallis, is in fact the best-selling novelist.
-
A Taste for Monsters
- By: Matthew J. Kirby
- Narrated by: Anna Mountford
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The real monsters are men. London 1888, and Jack the Ripper is terrorizing the people of the city. Evelyn, a young woman disfigured by her dangerous work in a matchstick factory, with nowhere to go, does not know what to make of her new position as a maid to the Elephant Man in London Hospital. Evelyn wanted to be locked away from the world like he is, shut away from the filth and dangers of the streets. But in Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, she finds a gentle kindred who does not recoil from her and who understands her pain.
-
The Blue and the Grey
- A Grand & Batchelor Victorian Mystery
- By: M. J. Trow
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
April 1865. Having been an eyewitness to the assassination of President Lincoln, Matthew Grand, a former captain of the 3rd Cavalry of the Potomac, has come to London on an undercover assignment to hunt down the assassin's coconspirators. Ambitious young journalist Jim Batchelor has been charged with writing a feature article on the visiting American. Both men are distracted from their missions by the discovery of a body in London's Soho district.
-
-
Hapless hack and American officer team up and solve murder.
- By The Curator on 25-12-19
-
Secrets in the Stones
- A Dr. Thomas Silkstone Mystery, Book 6
- By: Tessa Harris
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Within the mysteries of the body, especially those who have been murdered, 18th-century anatomist Dr. Thomas Silkstone specializes in uncovering the telltale clues that lead toward justice. Newly released from the notorious asylum known as Bedlam, Lady Lydia Farrell finds herself in an equally terrifying position - as a murder suspect - when she stumbles upon the mutilated body of Sir Montagu Malthus in his study at Boughton Hall.
-
-
Try agdin
- By Sally Ann Lewis on 25-12-21
-
Sweet Thames
- By: Matthew Kneale
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1849. As a cholera epidemic draws nearer, Joshua Jeavons, engineer, is working on his great drain plan for the capital. When the deaths begin, he works even more furiously, driven by the vision of a reborn London freed of rotting sewers. Then his beautiful young wife, Isobella, disappears, and Joshua must turn his attention to even more perplexing matters. His search for the answers to the mysteries that surround him leads from glittering Haymarket cafes to London's murky underworld.
-
-
Cholera and mystery
- By The Curator on 04-10-20
-
Sherlock Holmes and the Jeweller of Florence
- By: Christopher James
- Narrated by: Dominic Lopez
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is summer 1895 and a lost play by William Shakespeare is discovered. While being authenticated by scholars in Oxford there is a break-in and the 300-year-old quarto is stolen. Holmes is engaged in the most unusual of circumstances and together with the faithful Dr. Watson, they are soon on a trail which takes them from the Epsom Derby to Epping Forest and the great city of Florence itself. But this is not the only case brought to 221B Baker Street during this eventful year.
-
-
Good strong for Sherlock fans
- By Miss on 23-02-20
-
Striking Murder
- By: A. J. Wright
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1893. Wigan is in the grip of a harsh winter and a devastating national miners' strike. Arthur Morris, a wealthy colliery owner whose determination to cut the miners' pay is one of the main causes of the strike, is found brutally murdered in an alleyway. A sinister letter prompted the victim to leave his dinner guests and hurry out into the freezing night to Scholes, a rough working-class district where he is universally hated.
-
The House of Closed Doors
- By: Jane Steen
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Klett
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Desperate to avoid marriage, Nell Lillington refuses to divulge the name of her child's father and accepts her stepfather's decision that the baby be born at a Poor Farm and discreetly adopted. Until an unused padded cell is opened, and two small bodies fall out. Nell is the only resident of the Poor Farm who is convinced the unwed mother and her baby were murdered, and rethinks her decision to abandon her own child to fate. But even if she manages to escape the Poor Farm with her baby, she may have no safe place to run to.
Summary
In 1882, David Wildeblood, a 21-year-old from rural Norfolk, arrives in London to start work at the offices of a famous man. His job is to investigate the notorious slum of Somers Town, recording house by house the number of inhabitants, their occupations and standard of living. The deeper he penetrates the everyday squalor, the more appalled he is by mounting evidence that someone is making a profit from people's suffering. Passionate but reckless in his urge to uncover corruption, he soon finds his life in danger....
More from the same
Author
Narrator
What listeners say about The Streets
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Kindle-Kunde
- 04-12-12
You listen and learn
In general, I do not go for this kind of book. But this time I was intrigued by the good reviews the book got in the media. And I was not disappointed, in fact, pretty much the opposite. It was a fascinating listen I could hardly part with and left me with doing some research on workhouses etc. The Streets is novel in which history is artfully woven into the story and very well read.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- BrownDog
- 05-02-13
Touching story of poverty and corruption in 19th C
I enjoyed the author's last book "Half the Human Race" so I was hopeful this one would be good too. It was.
It is a story about poverty in Victorian England and the need for social reform. We see the streets of Somers Town through the eyes of David. He is employed to log the conditions of the local people for a paper which informs its middle class readers of the terrible conditions that the majority of Londoners live in. The author brings the place and time to life with amazing skill. Although David seems at first to be a little dull, the author gradually and with subtlety tells us his story. We feel a warmth for him, his honesty and the causes he is fighting for. We are on his side and hoping and willing him forward through all his adventures.
Somers Town is also brought to life through its varied and wonderfully drawn characters. David's main friends are Jo and Roma, a brother and sister who have struggled through their troubles and poverty together. But there are also fleeting glimpses of other extraordinary people whose fate is sealed once they fall on hard times. The nobility of their situation is not lost on David, and not content to just log their conditions he seeks to right the wrongs done to them by corrupt landlords, and provide them with a voice. This takes him on a detective like chase, leading all the way up the chain of command to the rotten core of the rent scam.
On the way he learns about some of the more progressive ideas about preserving social order, which masquerade as social reform. Although rooted in the past, the possibility of massive corruption as well as the wealthy orders trying to hold on to their money and status, all at the expense of the hard working poor reminds us of more recent times.
This is an excellent book, read with an attention to accents and the identity of the characters. I liked it - and the ending won't disappoint either.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jill P.
- 21-07-15
Truly absorbing
If you could sum up The Streets in three words, what would they be?
Atmospheric and historically detailed
What did you like best about this story?
I was totally absorbed by this story. As I follow the details of my family's history in 19th century London streets, this book contributed to my research by detailing very accurately and evocatively the life of the poor in London.
Have you listened to any of Ben Elliot’s other performances? How does this one compare?
No, I have not listened to other performances by Ben Elliott, but this was outstandingly well read. Each character had a distinctive voice and I followed the story without problem. I will make a point of looking for other performances by Ben Elliott.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
It was extremely difficult to put this book down and it can easily be read in one sitting if you have sufficient hours to listen to it.