Showing results by publisher "Naxos AudioBooks" in Classics

David Timson talks about Charles Dickens, much loved for his great contribution to classic English Literature. Listen to Little Dorrit narrated by Anton Lesser.

Cousin Phillis – a miniature masterpiece – is set in the 1840s, when the coming of the railway was changing the face of England, and quiet rural communities, coming into contact with the outside world, were changed forever. The story focuses on the effect these changes have on a naïve country girl, Phillis, as she encounters love, with all its pains and pleasures, for the first time.

In the quiet world of rural English clergy, lives are full of challenges, conflicts, desires and expectations. George Eliot’s first published work of fiction (1857) comprises three separate stories and has the hallmarks of her famous later works–her gentle wit and clever satire, her psychological insight, and her keen observation of human nature and frailty. These are beautifully written and poignant tales, set in and around the fictional Midlands town of Milby.

This is a story from the Canterbury Tales II: Modern Verse Translation collection.

This is an essay from the Favorite Essays collection.

David Timson talks about Charles Dickens, much loved for his great contribution to classic English Literature. Listen to The Pickwick Papers narrated by Anton Lesser.

Lady Susan was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed. Less known than Austen's six great later novels, it demonstrates the wit and sharp observations of Jane Austen - and is shown at its best in audiobook form, with different actresses presenting real characters as they read their letters.

A masterful blend of Gothic drama and romance, Wilkie Collins' mystery novel is an exploration of illegitimacy and inheritance. Set in Cornwall, the plot foreshadows The Woman in White with its themes of doubtful identity and deception and involves a broad array of characters. The "secret" of the book's title is the true parentage of the book's heroine, Rosamond Treverton, which has been written down and kept in an unused room at Porthgenna Tower. This is where, 20 years later, much of the novel's action is set.

Self-absorbed Sir Willoughby Patterne seeks a bride. After being jilted by his first fiancée he settles on the spirited Clara Middleton; but she starts to realise that he only wants a mirror for himself and his opinions. As she becomes desperate to disengage, and he becomes desperate to hold on to her, so a series of farcical, labyrinthine misunderstandings ensues.

In The Last Chronicle of Barset, Trollope concludes his saga of ecclesiastical life. At the heart of the novel is the plight of Josiah Crawley, a proud, impoverished clergyman who faces difficult legal circumstances. Caught amid poverty, Josiah appears to have stolen a check and is forced to stand trial - despite the fact that he cannot remember its origins. To make matters worse, his daughter, Grace, desperately seeks the approval of Archdeacon Grantly, whose son she intends to marry.

Fanny Hill, one of the most popular novels of the 18th century, traces the rise of its heroine from prostitution to middle-class respectability. Condemned in its own time on grounds of indecency, the book was the subject of several law suits until as recently as the 1960s. For today's listener, the work holds as much fascination as when it was first published, not only as the foremost example of English erotic fiction, but as a literary classic in its own right.

Published in 1899, The Solitary Summer is a charming companion to von Arnim’s earlier novel Elizabeth and Her German Garden. As with its prequel, the novel is semi-autobiographical and in the form of a series of diary entries. The narrator decides to spend one summer alone in her country house far away from the demands and distractions of the world. She offers us a witty and lyrical account of a solitary summer, filled with reading and reflections on her beloved garden. However, her months removed from society turn out to be less solitary than planned.

David Timson talks about Charles Dickens, much loved for his great contribution to classic English Literature. Listen to Great Expectations narrated by Anton Lesser.

The Thirty-Nine Steps begins John Buchan’s series of spy novels featuring adventurer Richard Hannay. Having just returned from South Africa, he finds life dull until a mysterious American tells him about an assassination plot before being murdered in Hannay’s London flat.

Humphrey van Weyden led a privileged existence during his early life, but suddenly finds himself cast into the sea, fighting for survival. Pitted against ruthless captain Wolf Larsen, van Weyden's courage and determination allows him to fight adversity and learn valuable lessons along the way, in this American classic originally published in 1904.

These six cases are among the last undertaken by Sherlock Holmes before he retired to the Sussex downs. However, the problems facing the sleuth are as diverse and challenging as ever. What with seeking the whereabouts of the stolen Mazarin Diamond, discovering the importance of being called Garrideb, encountering a mysterious murder on Thor Bridge, searching for eternal youth and the threat of a vampire in Sussex, there is no sign of Holmes' deductive powers slowing down.

Four more stories from the master detective. The mystery of the missing suitor is solved and Sherlock Holmes raises his whip: an Indian pot stands in the shadows of a Colonel's death; serious affairs of state and international diplomacy are threatened by a theft; and surely evil intent lies behind threats in a hidden house. The cool observations and swift action of Mr. Sherlock Holmes resolves all.

Compiled in Middle Welsh during the 12th and 13th centuries, The Mabinogion is a mesmerizing panorama of fantasy, romance, tragedy and humor. Blending Arthurian romance, Welsh legend and mythology, it tells tales of heroic knights, fair maidens, dramatic battles and magical beasts across 12 fantastical stories.

Lewis Romayne returns to the family home, Vange Abbey, after a fatal duel in France–the memory of which still haunts him. In an attempt to put the experience behind him, he visits London where he meets Stella Eynecourt, who will become his wife. However, Romayne also comes across the cunning Father Benwell, who is determined to convert him to Catholicism and to regain Vange Abbey for the Church.

David Timson introduces London Labour and the London Poor and its author Henry Mayhew, who in 1841 founded the satirical magazine Punch before his social conscience moved him to expose in his remarkable book the terrible poverty in London - then the richest city in the world.