Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Classics

Dorothy Parker's quips and light verse have embedded themselves in the American literary landscape, but it was her prose that proved her star and demonstrated her talent as extending far beyond her time. In her fiction, she not only brought to life the urban milieu that was her bailiwick, but...

Created by an Irish clergyman, Melmoth is one of the most fiendish characters in literature. In a satanic bargain, Melmoth exchanges his soul for immortality. The story of his tortured wanderings through the centuries is pieced together through those who have been implored by Melmoth to take over his pact with the devil. Influenced by the Gothic romances of the late 18th century, Maturin's diabolic tale raised the genre to a new and macabre pitch. Its many admirers include Poe, Balzac, Oscar Wilde and Baudelaire.

A Korean Charlotte's Web More than 2 million copies sold This is the story of a hen named Sprout. No longer content to lay eggs on command, only to have them carted off to the market, she glimpses her future every morning through the barn doors, where the other animals roam free, and comes up...

Penguin Classics presents Bram Stoker's Dracula, adapted for audio and available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by the actor Richard E. Grant. 'Alone with the dead! I dare not go out, for I can hear the low howl of the wolf through the broken window' A...

In the final years of his life, Chekhov produced some of the stories that rank among his masterpieces and some of the most highly-regarded works in Russian literature. The poignant 'The Lady with the Little Dog' and 'About Love' examine the nature of love outside of marriage - its romantic idealism and the fear of disillusionment. And in stories such as 'Peasants', 'The House with the Mezzanine' and 'My Life' Chekhov paints a vivid picture of the conditions of the poor and of their powerlessness in the face of exploitation and hardship.

When her family becomes impoverished after a disastrous financial speculation, Agnes Grey determines to find work as a governess in order to contribute to their meagre income and assert her independence. But Agnes' enthusiasm is swiftly extinguished as she struggles first with the unmanageable Bloomfield children and then with the painful disdain of the haughty Murray family; the only kindness she receives comes from Mr Weston, the sober young curate.

The discreet advertisement in The Times, addressed 'To Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine', offers a small medieval castle for rent, above a bay on the Italian Riviera. Four very different women - the dishevelled and downtrodden Mrs Wilkins, the sad, sweet-faced Mrs Arbuthnot, the formidable widow Mrs Fisher and the ravishing socialite Lady Caroline Dester - are drawn to the shores of the Mediterranean that April. As each, in turn, blossoms in the warmth of the Italian spring and finds their spirits stirring, quite unexpected changes occur.

Gulliver's Travels describes the four voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon. In Lilliput he discovers a world in miniature; towering over the people and their city, he is able to view their society from the viewpoint of a god. However, in Brobdingnag, a land of giants, tiny Gulliver himself comes under observation, exhibited as a curiosity at markets and fairs. In Laputa, a flying island, he encounters a society of speculators and projectors who have lost all grip on everyday reality; while they plan and calculate, their country lies in ruins.

No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles are fought, fortunes made and lost. The one steadfast and honourable figure in this corrupt world is Dobbin, bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray's gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure.

Something between a tale and a polemic, these 'fables of reason' are feats of narrative compression and contain much of Voltaire's best and funniest writing. From ribald tales of adultery to conversations between cosmic travellers, the stories in this collection pose moral, philosophical and social questions. Listener and protagonist alike find their assumptions challenged as Voltaire mingles rationality and fantasy.

The Persian epic that inspired Eric Clapton's unforgettable love song "Layla" and that Lord Byron called "the Romeo and Juliet of the East," in a masterly new translation The iconic love story of the Middle East, by a twelfth-century Persian poet who has been compared to Shakespeare for his...

Penguin Classics presents William Makepeace Thackeray adapted for audio and available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by Robert Hardy’s Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? Or, having it, is satisfied? No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder.

Seventeen-year-old Molly Gibson worships her widowed father. But when he decides to remarry, Molly’s life is thrown off course by the arrival of her vain, shallow, and selfish stepmother. There is some solace in the shape of her new stepsister, Cynthia, who is beautiful, sophisticated and irresistible to every man she meets. Soon the girls become close, and Molly finds herself cajoled into becoming a go-between in Cynthia’s love affairs. But in doing so, Molly risks ruining her reputation in the gossiping village of Hollingford - and jeopardizing everything with the man she is secretly in love with.

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by David Sibley, best known for Henry V, War & Peace and Silent Witness. This definitive recording is translated by, and includes an introduction by Gwyneth Lewis and Rowan William. Taliesin's is one of the most important names in all...

Penguin Classics presents Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, adapted for audio and available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by Joanna David. 'No sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than...

The Dowells, a wealthy American couple, have been close friends with the Ashburnhams for years. Edward Ashburnham, a first-rate soldier, seems to be the perfect English gentleman and Leonora his perfect wife, but beneath the surface their marriage seethes with unhappiness and deception. Our only window on the strange tangle of events surrounding Edward is provided by John Dowell, the husband he deceives. Gradually Dowell unfolds a devastating story, in which everyone's honesty is in doubt.

With its irrepressible heroine and playful literary games, Northanger Abbey is the most youthful and optimistic of Jane Austen's novels. It tells the story of young, impressionable Catherine Morland, whose first experience of fashionable society introduces her to the thrills of gothic romances, and to the sophisticated Tilneys, who invite her to their family home, Northanger Abbey. But there, influenced by novels of horror and intrigue, Catherine begins to think that terrible crimes are being committed, and her imagination threatens to run away with her.

Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community.

Penguin Classics presents Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers, adapted for listening and now available as a digital audiobook as part of the Penguin English Library series. The text is read by the actor David Timson. Trollope's comic masterpiece of plotting and backstabbing opens as the Bishop of Barchester lies on his deathbed. Soon a pitched battle breaks out over who will take power, involving, among others, the zealous reformer Dr Proudie, his fiendish wife, and the unctuous schemer Obadiah Slope.

Travelling in Europe with her family, Daisy Miller, an exquisitely beautiful young American woman, presents her fellow countryman Winterbourne with a dilemma he cannot resolve. Is she deliberately flouting social convention in the outspoken way she talks and acts, or is she simply ignorant of those conventions? When she strikes up an intimate friendship with an urbane young Italian, her flat refusal to observe the codes of respectable behaviour leave her perilously exposed.