Showing titles in Classics

Lily Cole stars as Helen of Troy, ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’, in Simon Armitage’s vivid, visceral adaptation of Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid. For 10 years, the Greeks have been laying siege to Troy to win back their abducted queen, Helen. But as the war drags on, and the battlefields run scarlet with blood, the opposing forces are entrenched in a bitter stalemate. As gods and mortals squabble amongst themselves for the spoils of war, the exhausted warriors go to extreme lengths in a desperate grab for victory....

A BBC Radio collection bringing together much-loved works by Alexandre Dumas and Alexandre Dumas fils, starring Timothy Spall, Anton Lesser, Iain Glen, Ruth Wilson and Dan Stevens. Alexandre Dumas père and fils are among the most popular and widely read authors in French literature, whose works have been adapted numerous times for stage, screen and radio. This BBC radio collection brings together three of their most famous tales of chivalry, heroism and romance.

Mr Finchley takes a fancy to a horse-drawn caravan that he sees for sale, but his new wife does not relish the prospect of a caravan journey, so he sets off alone to explore the countryside and go house-hunting. While learning to handle the horse and the caravan, he encounters a variety of eccentrics and country characters, and several unsuitable houses. It gradually emerges that the caravan contains a secret, and Mr Finchley finds himself in real trouble. This gentle comedy trilogy was a runaway bestseller on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today.

Threadbare has not had a very good time of it recently. His little girl has been taken from him, and he must travel the kingdom, finding allies old and new, living and dead, to help him rescue Celia. Fortunately, he's got a voice now and access to all those fun skills he couldn't before use. He may only be a very small teddy bear, but he's got the persistence to plow through dungeons of rascally raccoon monsters, the wiles to turn a town full of undead on its ear, and the sanity to survive an encounter with a mediocre old one.

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time Ralph Elllison's Invisible Man is a monumental novel, one that can well be called an epic of modern American Negro life. It is a strange story, in which many extraordinary things happen, some of them shocking and brutal...

Richard Hannay, Buchan's hero in this 1915 thriller, stumbles across a dark plot to attack England by the German Reich (of World War I vintage) but has to flee when his discovery becomes known. He then engages in several hot pursuits and narrow, if theatrical, escapes, but all's well that ends well.

The War Collection: Essential Battlefield Classics is a collection of 13 works of fiction, philosophy, military strategy, and epic poetry, read by esteemed cast of award-winning narrators. Included here are novels from Ernest Hemingway; military strategy from Sun Tzu and Carl von Clausewitz; essays from Orwell; philosophy from Freud, and epic poetry from Homer, amongst much more.

The story of France from the Renaissance to the 19th century, as Dumas vibrantly retold it in his numerous enormously popular novels, has long been absent one vital, richly historical era: the Age of Napoleon. But no longer. Now dynamically, in a tale of family honor and undying vengeance, of high adventure and heroic derring-do, The Last Cavalier fills that gap.

Bond may have a license to kill, but “Pistols” Scaramanga has a talent for it. He’s a KGB-trained assassin who’s left a trail of dead British Secret Service agents in his wake. His weapon of choice? A gold-plated Colt .45. In the aftermath of his brainwashing by the Soviets, Bond is given one last chance to win back M’s trust: terminate Scaramanga before he strikes MI6 again.

This Victorian best seller, along with Braddon's other famous novel, Aurora Floyd, established her as the main rival of the master of the sensational novel, Wilkie Collins. A protest against the passive, insipid 19th-century heroine, Lady Audley was described by one critic of the time as "high-strung, full of passion, purpose, and movement." Her crime (the secret of the title) is shown to threaten the apparently respectable middle-class world of Victorian England.

Romance and anarchist violence collide in this thought-provoking thriller about the London underworld and the political unrest that seethes there. Set in the late 19th century and written in James’s elegant, impressionistic style, The Princess Casamassima follows the life of bookbinder Hyacinth Robinson. The illegitimate son of a French woman imprisoned for murdering his father, Hyacinth is raised by an impoverished seamstress in a poor area of London.

He was Tiger, born of the desert winds, raised as a slave and winning his freedom by weaving a special kind of magic with a warrior's skill. Now he was an almost legendary sword-dancer, ready to take on any challenge - if the price was right…or if the woman pretty enough. She was Del, born of ice and storm, trained by the greatest of Northern sword masters. Now, her ritual training completed and steeped in the special magic of her own rune sword, she had come South in search of the young brother stolen five years before.

A KGB-trained IRA assassin has gone rogue and is hellbent on killing the pope. The IRA, KGB and British Secret Service are all after him, but can Liam Devlin get there first? Classic Jack Higgins for the new generation. Operating in Ireland to keep the cycle of violence between the IRA and British Intelligence at a fever pitch, hit man Cuchulain targets the pope as his ultimate victim, and two enemies become the only people who can stop him. The third book in the Liam Devlin series, hero of The Eagle Has Landed.

Auric Goldfinger is the richest man in England – though his wealth can’t be found in banks. He’s been hoarding vast stockpiles of his namesake metal, and it has attracted the suspicion of Bond’s superiors at MI6. Sent to investigate, Bond uncovers an ingenious gold-smuggling scheme, as well as Goldfinger’s most daring caper yet: Operation Grand Slam, a heist so audacious it could bring down the world economy and put the fate of the West in the hands of SMERSH. Only 007 can stop the enigmatic millionaire and his murderous mania for gold.

This audiobook includes unabridged recordings of Mark Twain's 12 most beloved novels and novellas.

As part of the d'Artagnan Romances following The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After, and devoted in large part to romantic events at the court of France's King Louis XIV, Louise de La Valliere is the second part of Alexandre Dumas's 268 chapter novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later, which first appeared in serial form between 1847 and 1850.

Sean Egan, ex-SAS operative and private investigator, is hired by wealthy American to investigate the murder of her stepson - a student who has been brutally killed and his corpse used to transport a deadly consignment of drugs. Investigate, and avenge...Egan is initially unwilling to take the job, but when he discovers a personal link, choice becomes a luxury he can no longer afford. The hunt is on for a ruthless man with links not only to drugs but also international terrorism, and the old Sicilian proverb has never been more true: the price for revenge is a season in hell.

When Twenty Years After opens it is 1648: the Red Sphinx, Cardinal Richelieu, is dead, France is ruled by a regency in the grip of civil war, and across the English Channel the monarchy of King Charles I hangs by a thread. As d’Artagnan will find, these are problems that can’t be solved with a sword thrust. In Twenty Years After, the musketeers confront maturity and face its greatest challenge: sometimes, you fail. It’s in how the four comrades respond to failure, and rise above it, that we begin to see the true characters of Dumas’s great heroes.

Jules Verne's two novels featuring Captain Nemo (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island), condensed down to two thrilling hours. In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, marine scientist Professor Aronnax and his stowaway daughter, Connie, join whaler Ned Land aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln to hunt an aggressive sea monster, believed to be a giant narwhale. When they engage the monster, they find to their astonish­ment it's an electrically powered submarine, the Nautilus, techno­logically far superior to any vessel known.

A new age dawns in the kingdom of Eileanan, but not without resistance. Now the Righ, Lachlan the Winged, overturns his dead brother’s decrees against witchcraft. But 16 years of hatred and superstition have cloaked Eileanan in darkness. And though he has won the power of the Lodestar, Lachlan’s rule is challenged by a mere babe - and a civil war erupts. The flame-haired twins - Iseult the Scarred Warrior and Isabeau the apprentice-witch - must go their separate ways. Iseult to fight side by side with her husband, Lachlan.