The best literary analysis of novels ever written.

Elizabeth Gaskell’s Lizzie Leigh is the sad tragedy of a young girl, who, while being away from home for work in Manchester, commits the sin of adultery and becomes pregnant with an illegitimate child. She decides not to return home for fear of her harsh father’s reaction. Not knowing whether her daughter is still alive, her mother decides to take her two sons and go to Manchester to look for her. The narrative then follows Lizzie’s poignant existence, as she tries to purge her soul from sin.

On Battersea Reach, a mixed bag of the temporarily lost and the patently eccentric live on houseboats, rising and falling with the tide of the Thames. There is good-natured Maurice, by occupation a male prostitute, by chance a receiver of stolen goods. And Richard, an ex-navy man whose boat, much like its owner, dominates the Reach.

Rosamond Frankland has married the love of her life, Leonard, who is blind. They have bought Porthgenna Tower, the manor where Rosamond grew up and where her mother died 20 years earlier. What they don't know is the dark secret that hovers over her family, that house, and the stories about a woman's ghost that haunts the north rooms. Is this a ghost story, a love story, a story with a tragic ending, or a lovely one?

Meeting by chance at a gambling hall in Europe, the separate lives of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth are immediately intertwined. Daniel, an Englishman of uncertain parentage, becomes Gwendolyn's redeemer as she finds herself drawn to his spiritual and altruistic nature after a loveless marriage. But Daniel's path was already set when he rescued a young Jewess from suicide.

Winesburg, Ohio is a little-known masterpiece that forever changed the course of American storytelling. At the center of this collection of stories stands George Willard, an earnest young reporter for the Winesburg Eagle who sets out to gather the town’s daily news. He ends up discovering the town’s deepest secrets as one by one, the townsfolk confide their hopes, dreams, and fears to the reporter. In their recollections of first loves and last rites, of sprawling farms and winding country roads, the town rises vividly - and poignantly - to life.

A holiday classic by Charles Dickens. Originally published in 1843, Dickens worried about the disparity between the wealthy and the impoverished, and it was his attempt to bring this disparity into the light of day, to appeal to the die-hard capitalists to take care of the downtrodden masses. Since this inequity continues, this story is still popular, and will probably continue to be so for the foreseeable future. 

Dust Tracks on a Road is the bold, poignant, and funny autobiography of novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, one of American literature's most compelling and influential authors. Hurston's powerful novels of the South - including Jonah's Gourd Vine and, most famously, Their Eyes Were Watching God - continue to enthrall readers with their lyrical grace, sharp detail, and captivating emotionality.

The classic collection of beloved tales, both sacred and profane, of travelers in medieval England. Complete and unabridged.

Long overshadowed by Jane Eyre, Villette is widely admired as one of Charlotte Bronte's finest works. This story of a young teacher at a girl's school in the city of Villette is a particular challenge for the young reader, for it requires maturity of vision, a fine narrative sense - and a command of French! Mandy Weston, a newcomer to Naxos AudioBooks, tells the story magnificently.