Get Your Free Audiobook
-
1876: A Novel
- Narratives of Empire, Book 3
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Series: Narratives of Empire, Book 3
- Length: 16 hrs and 7 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
Non-member price: $41.78
People who bought this also bought...
-
Lincoln
- A Novel (Narratives of Empire, Book 2)
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 32 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lincoln is the cornerstone of Gore Vidal’s fictional American chronicle, which includes Burr; 1876; Washington, D.C.; Empire; and Hollywood. It opens early on a frozen winter morning in 1861, when President-elect Abraham Lincoln slips into Washington, flanked by two bodyguards. The future president is in disguise, for there is talk of a plot to murder him. During the next four years there will be numerous plots to murder this man who has sworn to unite a disintegrating nation.
-
Empire: A Novel
- Narratives of Empire, Book 4
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While America struggles to define its destiny, beautiful and ambitious Caroline Sanford fights to control her own fate. One of Vidal’s most inspired creations, she is an embodiment of the complex, vigorous young nation. From the back offices of her Washington newspaper, Caroline confronts the two men who threaten to thwart her ambition: William Randolph Hearst and his protégé, Blaise Sanford, Caroline’s half brother.
-
Creation
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 27 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cyrus Spitama, grandson of the prophet Zoroaster and lifelong friend of Xerxes, spent most of his life as Persian ambassador for the great king Darius. He traveled to India, where he discussed nirvana with Buddha, and to the warring states of Cathay, where he learned of Tao from Master Li and fished on the riverbank with Confucius. Now blind and aged in Athens - the Athens of Pericles, Sophocles, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Socrates - Cyrus recounts his days as he strives to resolve the fundamental questions that have guided his life’s journeys.
-
Julian
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner, George Newbern, David de Vries, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, was one of the brightest yet briefest lights in the history of the Roman Empire. A military genius on the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, a graceful and persuasive essayist, and a philosopher devoted to worshipping the gods of Hellenism, he became embroiled in a fierce intellectual war with Christianity that provoked his murder at the age of thirty-two, only four years into his brilliantly humane and compassionate reign.
-
-
Great performance but writing style is cold
- By Jagungal on 06-04-2021
-
Hollywood: A Novel
- Narratives of Empire, Book 5
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 21 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1917, and President Woodrow Wilson is about to lead the country into the Great War in Europe. In California, a new industry is born that will irreversibly transform America. Caroline Sanford, the alluring heroine of Empire, discovers the power of moving pictures to manipulate reality as she vaults to screen stardom under the name of Emma Traxler. Just as Caroline must balance her two lives - West Coast movie star and East Coast newspaper publisher and senator’s mistress - so too must America balance its two power centers: Hollywood and Washington. Here is history as only Gore Vidal can re-create it: brimming with intrigue and scandal, peopled by the greats of the silver screen and American politics.
-
Burr
- A Novel (Narratives of Empire, Book 1)
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated - and misunderstood - figures among the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist. Burr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series.
-
Lincoln
- A Novel (Narratives of Empire, Book 2)
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 32 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lincoln is the cornerstone of Gore Vidal’s fictional American chronicle, which includes Burr; 1876; Washington, D.C.; Empire; and Hollywood. It opens early on a frozen winter morning in 1861, when President-elect Abraham Lincoln slips into Washington, flanked by two bodyguards. The future president is in disguise, for there is talk of a plot to murder him. During the next four years there will be numerous plots to murder this man who has sworn to unite a disintegrating nation.
-
Empire: A Novel
- Narratives of Empire, Book 4
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While America struggles to define its destiny, beautiful and ambitious Caroline Sanford fights to control her own fate. One of Vidal’s most inspired creations, she is an embodiment of the complex, vigorous young nation. From the back offices of her Washington newspaper, Caroline confronts the two men who threaten to thwart her ambition: William Randolph Hearst and his protégé, Blaise Sanford, Caroline’s half brother.
-
Creation
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 27 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cyrus Spitama, grandson of the prophet Zoroaster and lifelong friend of Xerxes, spent most of his life as Persian ambassador for the great king Darius. He traveled to India, where he discussed nirvana with Buddha, and to the warring states of Cathay, where he learned of Tao from Master Li and fished on the riverbank with Confucius. Now blind and aged in Athens - the Athens of Pericles, Sophocles, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Socrates - Cyrus recounts his days as he strives to resolve the fundamental questions that have guided his life’s journeys.
-
Julian
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner, George Newbern, David de Vries, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, was one of the brightest yet briefest lights in the history of the Roman Empire. A military genius on the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, a graceful and persuasive essayist, and a philosopher devoted to worshipping the gods of Hellenism, he became embroiled in a fierce intellectual war with Christianity that provoked his murder at the age of thirty-two, only four years into his brilliantly humane and compassionate reign.
-
-
Great performance but writing style is cold
- By Jagungal on 06-04-2021
-
Hollywood: A Novel
- Narratives of Empire, Book 5
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 21 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1917, and President Woodrow Wilson is about to lead the country into the Great War in Europe. In California, a new industry is born that will irreversibly transform America. Caroline Sanford, the alluring heroine of Empire, discovers the power of moving pictures to manipulate reality as she vaults to screen stardom under the name of Emma Traxler. Just as Caroline must balance her two lives - West Coast movie star and East Coast newspaper publisher and senator’s mistress - so too must America balance its two power centers: Hollywood and Washington. Here is history as only Gore Vidal can re-create it: brimming with intrigue and scandal, peopled by the greats of the silver screen and American politics.
-
Burr
- A Novel (Narratives of Empire, Book 1)
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated - and misunderstood - figures among the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist. Burr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series.
-
The City and the Pillar
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jim, a handsome, all-American athlete, has always been shy around girls. But when he and his best friend, Bob, partake in “awful kid stuff,” the experience forms Jim’s ideal of spiritual completion. Defying his parents’ expectations, Jim strikes out on his own, hoping to find Bob and rekindle their amorous friendship.
-
The Saddest Words
- William Faulkner's Civil War
- By: Michael Gorra
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Should we still read William Faulkner in this new century? What can his works tell us about the legacy of slavery and the Civil War, that central quarrel in our nation's history? These are the provocative questions that Michael Gorra asks in this historic portrait of the novelist and his world.
-
Myra Breckinridge
- A Novel (Myra and Myron, Book 1)
- By: Gore Vidal, Camille Paglia - introduction
- Narrated by: Michelle Hendley, Camille Paglia
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"I am Myra Breckinridge, whom no man will ever possess." So begins the irresistible testimony of the luscious instructor of Empathy and Posture at Buck Loner's Academy of Drama and Modeling. Myra has a secret that only her surgeon shares; a passion for classic Hollywood films, which she regards as the supreme achievements of Western culture; and a sacred mission to bring heteronormative civilization to its knees. Fifty years after its first publication unleashed gales of laughter, delight, and ferocious dissent, Myra's moment to instruct and delight has once again arrived.
-
Washington D.C.: A Novel
- Narratives of Empire, Book 6
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 14 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Widely regarded as Vidal's ultimate comment on how the American political system degrades those who participate in it, Washington, D.C. is a stunning tale of corruption and diseased ambitions. It traces the fortunes of James Burden Day, a powerful conservative senator who is eyeing the presidency; Clay Overbury, a pragmatic young congressional aide with political aspirations of his own; and Blaise Sanford, a ruthless newspaper tycoon who understands the importance of money and image in modern politics.
-
Inventing a Nation
- Washington, Adams, Jefferson
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht, Gore Vidal
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volumes have been written about George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, but no previous work captures the intimate and vital details the way Inventing a Nation does. Vidal's consummate skill takes you into the minds and private rooms of these great men, illuminating their opinions of one another and their concerns about crafting a workable democracy.
-
-
intriguing, illuminating, informative
- By Anonymous User on 16-08-2018
-
Where Law Ends
- Inside the Mueller Investigation
- By: Andrew Weissmann
- Narrated by: George Newbern, Andrew Weissmann
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the first and only inside account of the Mueller investigation, one of the special counsel’s most trusted prosecutors breaks his silence on the team’s history-making search for the truth, their painstaking deliberations and costly mistakes, and Trump’s unprecedented efforts to stifle their report.
-
-
Mr Adrian Praljak ( Australian Lawyer )
- By Anonymous User on 07-10-2020
-
Evil Geniuses
- The Unmaking of America - A Recent History
- By: Kurt Andersen
- Narrated by: Kurt Andersen
- Length: 16 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Evil Geniuses is the secret history of how, over the last half century, from even before Ronald Reagan through Donald Trump, America has sharply swerved away from its dream of progress for the many to a system of unfettered profit and self-interest for the few. As the social liberation of the 1960s finally ended in the chaos of Vietnam and Watergate, a cabal of rich industrialists, business chiefs, wide-eyed libertarians and right-wing economic radicals were waiting, determined to claw back everything they saw as rightfully theirs.
-
The Crooked Path to Abolition
- Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution
- By: James Oakes
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An award-winning scholar uncovers the guiding principles of Lincoln's antislavery strategies.
-
Lucky
- How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency
- By: Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the number-one New York Times best-selling authors of Shattered, the definitive account of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, comes the inside story of the historic 2020 presidential election and Joe Biden’s harrowing ride to victory. Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes use their unparalleled access to key players inside the Democratic and Republican campaigns to unfold how Biden’s nail-biting run for the presidency vexed his own party as much as it did Trump.
-
-
Fantastic review of one lucky campaign
- By Anonymous User on 14-03-2021
-
Moonflower Murders
- Magpie Murders, Book 2
- By: Anthony Horowitz
- Narrated by: Lesley Manville, Allan Corduner
- Length: 18 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Retired publisher Susan Ryeland is living the good life. She is running a small hotel on a Greek island with her long-term boyfriend, Andreas. It should be everything she's always wanted - but is it? She's exhausted with the responsibilities of making everything work on an island where nothing ever does, and truth be told she's beginning to miss her old life in London.
-
-
Fabulous
- By Anonymous User on 08-09-2020
-
United States: Essays 1952-1992
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 60 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gore Vidal’s reputation as America’s finest essayist is an enduring one. This collection, chosen by the author from 40 years of work, contains about two-thirds of what he published in various magazines and journals. He has divided the essays into three categories, or states. State of the art covers literature, including novelists and critics, bestsellers, pieces on Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Suetonius, Nabakov, and Montaigne (a previosly uncollected essay from 1992).
-
Fulfillment
- Winning and Losing in One-Click America
- By: Alec MacGillis
- Narrated by: Danny Gavigan
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alec MacGillis’ Fulfillment is not another inside account or exposé of our most conspicuously dominant company. Rather, it is a literary investigation of the America that falls within that company’s growing shadow. As MacGillis shows, Amazon’s sprawling network of delivery hubs, data centers, and corporate campuses epitomizes a land where winner and loser cities and regions are drifting steadily apart, the civic fabric is unraveling, and work has become increasingly rudimentary and isolated.
Publisher's Summary
The third volume of Gore Vidal's magnificent series of historical novels aimed at demythologizing the American past, 1876 chronicles the political scandals and dark intrigues that rocked the United States in its centennial year.
Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler, Aaron Burr's unacknowledged son, returns to a flamboyant America after his long, self-imposed European exile. The narrator of Burr has come home to recoup a lost fortune by arranging a suitable marriage for his beautiful daughter, the widowed Princess d'Agrigente, and by ingratiating himself with Samuel Tilden, the favored presidential candidate in the centennial year. With these ambitions and with their own abundant charms, Schuyler and his daughter soon find themselves at the centers of American social and political power at a time when the fading ideals of the young republic were being replaced by the excitement of empire.
"A glorious piece of writing," said Jimmy Breslin in Harper's. "Vidal can take history and make it powerful and astonishing." Time concurred: "Vidal has no peers at breathing movement and laughter into the historical past."
More from the same
What listeners say about 1876: A Novel
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- John Norton
- 24-08-2019
I'm devoted to this series
Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire are highly readable political and social histories of the United States. Witty, ironic, pragmatic tales that strip away the myths and help us better understand what we've always been about.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- ElzRival
- 30-05-2020
I have never hated such well written characters
The main character and his psycho daughter are both unsufferable hypocritical assholes. Good writing though.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- ckmc
- 06-01-2020
Weak as a stand alone, but worthwhile.
This book is the third in the Narratives of Empire series. I’m enjoying the series, but this book doesn’t do well as a stand-alone.
On the other hand, it’s a story of political corruption at the highest level, very reminiscent of today. It’s striking to listen to the parallels between the news of today and from 1876.
As always, Vidal’s writing is pleasing to follow. The performer did a wonderful job, particularly with all the accents. He played his part well.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Book Lover
- 30-08-2020
Disappointing
I loved Burr and Lincoln but this book was a real disappointment. Until the last two hours of the 16 hour book nothing much of interest really happens except endless dinners and judgmental conversations and observations. I was ready for the book to end when it finally got interesting. I really liked the fictional character Charlie in Burr but not as much in this book and really disliked his fictional princess daughter.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- PeacefulSeeker
- 11-02-2021
My First Vidal Book
This is art. Every shade and stroke make it both informative and entertaining. This book, in particular, is relevant for 2021 readers.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- N. Hawryluk
- 02-02-2021
Another Strong Vidal Story, Great Narration
Another richly textured, gorgeously written and darkly comic entry from Vidal. This one suffers a bit by not having a clear historical character to focus on like BURR and LINCOLN, and much of the plot went by before I realized what the main subject was even going to turn out to be. But the journey to get there was so well executed that I didn’t mind at all. There are a lot of truly great quotes in this one- the only thing I regret about reading it as an audiobook is that I couldn’t easily archive those moments. Gardner is excellent as always. [AUDIBLE]
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- M. J. Walsh
- 25-01-2021
Truth is the necessary casualty
Although fundamentally a bleak view of the United States ten years after the civil war and a century after its foundation - a society ruled over by self satisfied, dull plutocrats, with a political life warped by corruption and a ruthless partisanship that cares nothing for the truth (seems familiar) - the tone of 1876 is mostly light and companionable.
This is not a great book and it is also far from being the author's best work. However it does have some interesting points to make about a time in American history now largely forgotten and it is easy to spend time with as it does so. As with the two earlier books in this series, the reading by Grover Gardner could not be better.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- CNY
- 08-06-2020
Good, and "ton" Aplenty
I love the writing style and that it highlighted the presidential scandal of 1876. Republicans are not new to fixing elections and Florida has always been a problem with their returns. Still the story rambles and sometimes gets lost in unnecessary detail whilst trying to create universe.
20 Best Fantasy Audiobooks
This genre is so full of talent, it can be difficult to know what to listen to next — so look no further than this list to get you started.



20 Best Nonfiction Audiobooks
From the entire history of humanity to astrophysics, to our gut and mental health, dig into this list and learn something new.



Best Australian Podcasts on Audible
Audible Original Podcasts are free for Audible members. Check out this list of home-grown content, from binge-worthy true crime to self-help.


