Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Classics

An unlikely hero. A perilous quest. The greatest adventure ever told. In a quiet village in the Shire, young Frodo is about to receive a gift that will change his life forever. Thought lost centuries ago, it is the One Ring, an object of terrifying power once used by the Dark Lord to enslave...

The devastating conclusion of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic tale of adventure. The Dark Lord has risen, and as he unleashes hordes of Orcs to conquer all Middle-earth, Frodo and Sam struggle deep into his realm in Mordor. To defeat Sauron, the One Ring must be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom. But...

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott is a classic novel originally published in 1868. It tells the story of four sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March, and their coming of age during the American Civil War. With the help of their beloved mother and their beloved neighbor, Mr. Laurence, the girls learn valuable lessons about love, family, and the importance of giving back to the community. Along the way, they learn the importance of resilience and self-determination, as they face various hardships and struggles.

Mrs. Frisby, a widowed mouse with four small children, is faced with a terrible problem. She must move her family to their summer quarters immediately, or face almost certain death. But her youngest son, Timothy, lies ill with pneumonia and must not be moved. Fortunately, she encounters the rats of NIMH, an extraordinary breed of highly intelligent creatures, who come up with a brilliant solution to her dilemma.

Shakespeare's seven great tragedies contain unmistakable elements that set them apart from any other plays ever written. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare embodied in the character of Juliet the world's most impressive representation ever of a woman in love. With Julius Caesar, the great playwright produced a drama of astonishing and perpetual relevance.

In the small coastal city of Oran, Algeria, rats begin rising up from the filth only to die as bloody heaps in the streets. Shortly after, an outbreak of the bubonic plague erupts and envelops the human population. Albert Camus' The Plague is a brilliant and haunting rendering of human perseverance and futility in the face of a relentless terror born of nature. 

The Darkest Road - the gripping conclusion to Kay's critically acclaimed Fionavar Tapestry fantasy trilogy - finds five university students from our world preparing to sacrifice themselves as they enter into final battle against a power of unimaginable proportions. 

The queen of science fiction’s trailblazing novel about a planet full of genderless beings A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary’s mission to Winter, an unknown alien world whose inhabitants can choose—and...

Adam Bede (1859), George Eliot's first full-length novel, marked the emergence of an artist to rank with Scott and Dickens. Set in the English Midlands of farmers and village craftsmen at the turn of the 18th century, the book relates a story of seduction issuing in "the inward suffering which is the worst form of Nemesis". But it is also a rich and pioneering record - drawing on intimate knowledge and affectionate memory - of a rural world that we have lost.

"I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man", a nameless voice cries out. And so, from underground, emerge the passionate confessions of a suffering man; the painful self-examination of a tormented soul; the bristling scorn of a lonely individual who has become one of the greatest anti-heroes in all literature.

From World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award winner Michael Moorcock comes the first volume in his Elric of Melniboné series. It is one of the most well-known and well-loved fantasy epics of the twentieth century: the story of Elric, emperor of the dying kingdom of Melniboné. For a hundred...

When Peter Pan and his fairy companion, Tinker Bell, fly in through the window of Wendy's nursery one night, it is the beginning of an adventure that whisks Wendy and her brothers, Michael and John, off to Neverland. There, they will find mermaids, fairies, pirates led by the sinister Captain Hook, and the crocodile who bit off his leg - and still pursues him in hope of the rest!

One of America’s most celebrated novelists, Cormac McCarthy announced his towering presence on the literary stage with his first novel, The Orchard Keeper. Within the pages of this classic work, John Wesley Rattner, his uncle Ather, and bootlegger Marion Sylder find their lives dangerously entwined in pre-World War II Tennessee. There, the men’s tragedies and struggles are mirrored by the looming specter of industrialization.

Years before Dorothy and her dog crash-land, another little girl makes her presence known in Oz. This girl, Elphaba, is born with emerald-green skin—no easy burden in a land as mean and poor as Oz, where superstition and magic are not strong enough to explain or overcome the natural disasters of flood and famine. Still, Elphaba is smart, and not long after entering Shiz University, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz's most promising young citizens. But Elphaba's Oz is no utopia. The Wizard's secret police are everywhere.

Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning White boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes she's been given a challenge.

A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can change their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters. Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement.

Quasimodo was born disfigured, hunchbacked and lame, and years spent ringing the bells of the Cathedral of Notre Dame have left him deaf, but also spared him the taunts of the cruel mobs of Paris. Now Quasimodo has fallen in love with the lovely Gypsy girl Esmeralda, the only person who ever showed pity on him - but she faces a death sentence, and only Quasimodo's pure spirit can save her. Or can he?

Few books have so affected radical social changes as The Jungle, first published serially in 1906. Exposing unsanitary conditions in the meat-packing industry in Chicago, Sinclair's novel gripped Americans by the stomach, contributing to the passage of the first Food and Drug Act. If you’ve never read this classic novel, don't be put off by its gruesome reputation. Upton Sinclair was a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who could turn even an exposé into a tender and moving novel.

With millions of copies sold The Stranger is one of the most widely read novels in the world. It stands as perhaps the greatest existentialist tale ever conceived. When a young Algerian named Meursault kills a man, his subsequent imprisonment and trial are puzzling and absurd. This remarkable translation by Matthew Ward has been considered the definitive English version since its original publication.

Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, was Defoe’s first novel and survives as his best-known work. Loosely based on a true account of a Scottish sailor—Alexander Selkirk—it is a tale of one man’s fall from grace and progress to redemption. The account of Crusoe’s life, scratched out with rationed indigo ink on a dwindling supply of paper salvaged from the hull of a wrecked ship, speaks eloquently of the tenacity and ingenuity of the human spirit.