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Drawing on deep archival research and decades of scholarship, Ann Schmiesing tells the affecting story of how the Grimms’ ambitious projects gave the brothers a sense of self-preservation through the atrocities of the Napoleonic Wars and a series of personal losses.

Shakespeare's Othello is one of his finest and most famous tragedies. This highly acclaimed performance, which ran between November 2007 and February 2008 at the Donmar Warehouse in London, features Chiwetel Ejiofor as the Moor Othello, Ewan McGregor as the scheming Iago, and Kelly Reilly as the gentle Desdemona. This recording features music written specifically for the stage production which enjoyed huge success - each performance was a sell-out.

Short Stories in Norwegian for Beginners has been made especially for students from beginner to low-intermediate level, designed to give a sense of achievement, a feeling of progress and most importantly - enjoyment! Mapped to A1-B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference, these eight captivating stories are designed to give you a sense of achievement and a feeling of progress when listening.

Henry may be the wittiest playwright of his generation, but he’s hopelessly naïve when it comes to understanding love and infidelity. Writing about betrayal is one thing, living with it is another. After Henry leaves his wife for another woman, he’s confronted with being the cuckold himself. Both dazzlingly clever and emotionally naked, Henry’s search for the “the real thing” in art and love demonstrates beautifully why both are worth the effort in the end.

From John Wyndham, author of The Day of the Triffids, comes this chilling tale of a normal boy confronted with abnormal circumstances. Matthew had always been an ordinary boy. Even when he started talking to himself and introduced his invisible friend, Chocky, to the family, it was obviously...

Over the course of three years, Alice Oswald recorded conversations with people who live and work on the River Dart in Devon. Using these records and voices as a sort of poetic census, she creates in Dart a narrative of the river, tracking its life from source to sea.

William Butler Yeats remains one of the most popular poets of the 20th century.

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree," "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven," "Down by the Salley Gardens," "The Secret Rose": these are just a few of the poems that made William Butler Yeats an international figure. Born in Dublin in 1865, Yeats drew strength from the Irish tradition, as can be seen in this special audiobook, which presents the most important poems in the context of his life and ambitions.

In The Guide to James Joyce's Ulysses, Patrick Hastings provides comprehensive support to readers and listeners of Joyce's magnum opus by illuminating crucial details and reveling in the mischievous genius of this unparalleled novel. Written in a voice that offers encouragement and good humor, this guidebook maintains a closeness to the original text and supports the first-time reader or listener of Ulysses with the information needed to successfully finish and appreciate the novel.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast production of one of the earliest plays by Alan Bennett. The 1970s are a time of change, but Labour MP George Oliver feels stuck in one place: distrusting the ‘mawkish mentality’ of the young and fearing the encroaching life of the middle-aged, with little to look forward to but the imminent end of a not-very-interesting road.

Four classic comedies from one of the wittiest playwrights in Western literature: Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest, all featuring star-studded casts with the likes of Jacqueline Bisset, Miriam Margolyes, James Marsters, Alfred Molina, Roger Rees, Yeardley Smith, Eric Stoltz, and many more. This audio also includes a chilling dramatization of Wilde's sole novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Under Milk Wood is Dylan Thomas's undisputed and unforgettable masterpiece - an affectionate, but hilarious portrait of a small Welsh town. The classic 1954 recording, featuring a perfect cast led by Richard Burton as "First Voice", is rightly considered to be definitive. This collection also includes two earlier radio programs: Return Journey to Swansea and Quite Early One Morning, read by Dylan Thomas and others.

Fanny Price, in Mansfield Park, tells her persistent suitor that "we have all a better guide in ourselves . . . than any other person can be." Sometimes, however, we crave external guidance: and when this happens we could do worse than seek it in Jane Austen's own subtle novels. Written to coincide with Austen's 250th birthday, this approachable and intimate work shows why and how—for over half a century—Austen has inspired and challenged its author through different phases of her life.

Countless would-be readers and listeners of Finnegans Wake - James Joyce's 1939 masterwork, on which he labored for a third of his life - have given up after a few pages and "dismissed the book as a perverse triumph of the unintelligible." In 1944, a young professor of mythology and literature named Joseph Campbell, working with novelist and poet Henry Morton Robinson, wrote the first guide to understanding the fascinating world of Finnegans Wake.

For anyone who ever wondered what Marcel Proust had in mind when he wrote the one-and-a-quarter-million words of In Search of Lost Time (while bedridden no less), Alain de Botton has the answer. For, in this stylish, erudite and frequently hilarious book, de Botton dips deeply into Proust’s life and work - his fiction, letter, and conversations – and distils from them that rare self-help manual: one that is actually helpful.

A BBC Radio 4 production of Wynyard Browne’s classic play about a 1950s family homecoming at Christmas. It is Christmas Eve and the family are gathering at Reverend Martin Gregory’s Norfolk vicarage. A soldier son destined for Oxbridge, two elderly aunts with a passion for chatter, a cousin...

On a becalmed yawl in the Thames estuary, Marlow tells a tale of Africa. His job there is to find the enigmatic Kurtz, but his journey further and further upriver reveals the brutality of the white Imperialists who run the country. Established as one of the great English novels, and a story of mythic power, Heart of Darkness is rich in meaning – allusive, enthralling, and haunting.

From his much publicized childhood on Cotchford Farm to his war experiences, his marriage, and his proprietorship of a successful bookshop in a small English town, the life of the famous author’s son was one of much joy and some pain. It was also one of deep introspection. This book illuminates the shy, quiet man who was a thoughtful observer of the natural world and a gentle commentator on humankind’s relationship to it.

In words remarkable for their richness of rhythm and imagery, Milton tells the story of man's creation, fall, and redemption, "to justify the ways of God to men". Here, unabridged, and told with exceptional sensitivity and power by Anton Lesser, is the plight of Adam and Eve, the ambition and vengefulness of Satan and his cohorts.

A new family moves in over the road. The new family is acting strange. This new family has some secrets. From the author of Audible's Thriller of the Year, Silent Child, comes another psychological thriller to keep you guessing until the very end. Performed by Sophie McShera, (Daisy Mason, Downton Abbey), enter the world of a family broken by lies, a woman traumatised by a dark past, and a child caught in the crossfire.

Clever, funny and poignant, Alan Bennett’s masterful plays are rightly regarded as modern classics. Kafka’s Dick is Bennett’s brilliantly clever comedy drama that examines the relationship between life and art, and asks what was Kafka’s embarrassing little problem... Alison Steadman...