Showing results by publisher "CSA Word" in Classics

Sense and Sensibility is the story of two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, and their very different responses to love, loss, and the crushing of their hopes and dreams. Austen chooses this novel to comment on the financial situation of women. The Dashwood Sisters are virtually penniles in a world where the "marriage market" is largely governed by money. They lose their home on their father's death and receive more kindness from strangers than from their own brother.

Here are tales of mystery, the supernatural, and the paranormal, all moulded by Robin Bailey's very smooth and rolling tones. These intriguing stories include "The Man of the Night" by Edgar Wallace, "No. 1 Branch Line: The Signalman" by Charles Dickens, "A Terribly Strange Bed" by Wilkie Collins, "Sredni Vashtar" by Saki, "The Werewolf" by Frederick Marryat, "The Mezzotint" by M.R. James, and "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe.

Elizabeth Gaskell highlights the difference between the middle and working classes in this tale set in the time of the Industrial Revolution. A largely autobiographical story, she also highlights the good that each group can do for each other, and the friendships and understandings that can blossom between two seemingly irreconcilable means and modes of life. Gaskell shows her great love of people, and of love itself, in this touching and enlightening tale.

Narrator Nigel Hawthorne's exceptional talents as an actor bring comedy to the fore in this collection, extracting every nuance of humour from these seven great stories. Featuring "Brugglesmith" by Rudyard Kipling, "The Cricket Match" (from England, Their England) by A.G. Macdonell, "Reginald on House Parties" by Saki, "Winglebury Duel" by Charles Dickens, and more.

Silas Marner, a weaver, is cast out from his religious community and arrives in Raveloe, where he is feared because of his mysterious nature and brooding manner. When he is left an unwanted child to care for, his love for the child grows, and the unlikely pair find that kindness from the community towards them does too.

Emma is set in Highbury, a sizeable village in Surrey, where social life is dominated by the intelligent and wealthy Emma Woodhouse, who has too little to occupy herself and turns to matchmaking on behalf of her friends and neighbours to relieve boredom. Her schemes meet with varying degrees of success, until she finally learns to concentrate on her own life and leave others to live theirs without her interference.

This classic story focusses on a naïve governess who takes charge of two children at the lonely House of Bly. When she begins to see ghosts, she believes that the children do too - with devastating consequences. More than just a simple tale of the supernatural, James poses questions about childhood innocence, corruption, and hysteria.

Here are some truly spooky stories, given a spine-tingling read by Richard Pasco. The stories include "The Mark of the Beast" by Rudyard Kipling, "Aurelia" by E.T.A. Hoffmann, "Ligeia" by Edgar Allan Poe, "Mrs. Amworth" by E.F. Benson, and "Dracula's Guest" by Bram Stoker.

A lover's most unlikely jealousy, a mother's patient wait for revenge, a young actress driven to distraction by a cruel husband, a story of jilted love and murder in a London lodging house, and a confrontation that brings a saga of mutual loathing to a terrible conclusion on the other side of the Atlantic - here are stories by five master storytellers.

Tom is thrown out of his foster father's house for "crimes" that he didn't commit, and proceeds to have numerous bawdy adventures and fights, eventually finding that only his true love can save him from a life that could possibly end at the gallows.

Vanity Fair is a satirical masterpiece, a sweeping panorama of early 19th-century English life. Thackeray's much-celebrated novel has been dramatized for television, radio, and most recently for film starring Reese Witherspoon and Romola Garai. It follows the fortunes of the virtuous Amelia Sedley and the infamous Becky Sharp.

The action is set within the claustrophobic confines of a British man-of-war ship in the summer of 1797. Here live the crew of the HMS Indomitable, many of them pressed into service against their will.

Billy Budd, however, enjoys naval life. But the evil master-at-arms, Claggart, loathes his fresh-faced innocence and accuses him of mutiny. From this false charge springs a naval tragedy.

Based on Charlotte Bronte's work as a governess in Brussels, Villette concerns the life of Lucy Snowe, an English girl who obtains a post at a girl's school in Belgium. With few friends and little money, Lucy concentrates on her work. However, she starts to find solace in an unlikely suitor. Could there be more to life than loneliness?

Young and susceptible, Catherine Morland expects dark secrets and many dangers to be lurking in the hidden recesses of Northanger Abbey. In fact, the real obstacles lying in her path are more mundane, but just as serious as her imagined horrors.

Anne Elliot made a big mistake: she let the love of her life get away. But seven years later, he comes back from the sea. As with all Jane Austen novels, this draws much of its appeal from the author's talent for observation and satire. The snobberies of a genteel world are exposed by its demurely mischievious heroine.

Captain Ahab is hell-bent on catching the famous gargantuan whale, who cost him one of his legs on a previous voyage. With disregard for his safety or that of his crew, he persues the beast with an obsession tantamount to madness.

Pip, Estella, and Miss Havisham meet in this world-famous masterpiece.

Sons and Lovers is the moving and explicit account of a young man growing up in a closed mining community. Born into a difficult marriage, Paul Morel is shy, introverted, and impressionable. As a young adult he becomes violently caught between the attentions of three women: his influential mother Gertrude; spiritual and devoted Miriam; and the sensual and mature Clara.

The Three Musketeers is a swashbuckling adventure in which the king of France's guards swear by the motto "All for one and one for all" and follow it with the utmost commitment. The Musketeers find themselves having a whole host of adventures, which serve as a training period for the young D'Argtagnan, who has always dreamed of a life with the Musketeers after hearing of them as a little boy. Fun and excitement for all the family, brilliantly read by Jonathan Hyde.

'Now what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life…'. So says Thomas Gradgrind in Dickens' immortal story set in the North of England in the 19th century. Gradgrind, a local industrialist, gave this advice to his children, set against a backdrop of huge wealth and even huger poverty, where the rich marry for money and the poor cannot afford to divorce.