Showing results by publisher "MuseumAudiobooks.com" in Classics

The novel Shirley by Charlotte Brontë (1849) followed the huge popular success of her debut, Jane Eyre. The setting is an environment which is industrializing at a rapid pace during the Napoleonic Wars. This is the story of two heroines occupying vastly different social positions in life. Caroline Helstone, trapped in a Yorkshire rectory, serves as a symbol of all the single women of the time. On the other hand, there’s Shirley Keeldar, an independent woman whose wealth has liberated her.

Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on January 1, 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821.

Billy Budd, Sailor is a novella by Herman Melville which was left unfinished at the time of his death in 1891. Ecstatically received by critics in 1924 when a hastily transcribed version was published, it soon became second in importance only to Moby Dick among the author’s works. Budd is a sailor who strikes and inadvertently kills John Claggart, the Master-at-arms. The ship's Captain, Edward Vere, is aware of Budd's lack of intent but the law of mutiny requires him to sentence Billy to be hanged.

The Call of the Wild and White Fang are two masterpieces of American literature set in the desolate cold North. The Call of the Wild is the story of a gentle domestic dog that rejects civilization and returns to the wilderness due to the cruelty of mankind. White Fang is a companion narrative and a thematic mirror to The Call of the Wild; it tells the tale of a wolf-dog hybrid who struggles to survive and ultimately changes from a fearsome wild beast into a creature of love.

Oscar Wilde's Salome was originally published in French in 1891 and translated into English by Lord Alfred Douglas. This one-act play, a sinister tale of a woman scorned and her vengeance, has become a landmark of Decadent literature. The play tells the biblical story of Salome, stepdaughter of the tetrarch Herod Antipas, who, to her stepfather's dismay but to the delight of her mother Herodias, requests the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter as a reward for dancing the dance of the seven veils.

The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett, is an 1896 novella and early example of the regionalism genre with its sketches of the fictional fishing village of Dunnet Landing in Maine. The narrator is a woman from Boston who returns to the small coastal town after a brief earlier visit, in order to finish writing her book. She rents an empty schoolhouse with a panoramic view of Dunnet Landing, which serves as a focus of narrative consciousness.

Allan Quartermain ventures to King Solomon's mines with Sir Henry to find his brother Neville. The journey is long and ardeous, but thankfully they have Captain John Good to ensure their safety.

The Beast in the Jungle is a 1903 novella by Henry James, first published in the collection titled The Better Sort. The story addresses themes like fate, loneliness, love and death. The protagonist, John Marcher, anticipates an event that he believes will set him apart from other people. Marcher is frozen by his fears and a sense of impending doom. A haunting tale of egotism, fear of the unknown and unrequited love, the story warns that the only thing one has to fear is fear itself. John’s failure to reciprocate May Bartram’s love condemns him.