AuthorCharlotte Bronte
NarratorAnna Bentinck
Duration26h 35m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Classics
Key StageA Level
PublisherIsis
VersionUnabridged
The Shirley of the title is a woman of independent means; her friend Caroline is not. Both struggle with what a woman's role is and can be. Their male counterparts - Louis, the powerless tutor, and Robert, his cloth-manufacturing brother - also stand at odds to society's expectations. The novel is set in a period of social and political ferment, featuring class disenfranchisement, the drama of Luddite machine-breaking, and the divisive effects of the Napoleonic Wars. But Charlotte Brontes particular strength lies in exploring the hidden psychological drama of love, loss and the quest for identity. Personal and public agitation are brought together against the dramatic backdrop of her native Yorkshire. As always, Bronte challenges convention, exploring the limitations of social justice whilst telling not one but two love stories.
Author: Albert Camus
Author Albert Camus
Narrator James Jenner
Duration 11h 2m
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 bo...
View Book
Author: Kenneth Grahame
Author Kenneth Grahame
Narrator Alan Bennett
Duration 1h 17m
When the Water Rat invites the unassuming Mole to spend his first day ever in a boat on the river, and wise Badger comes along for the ride as well, so begins a marvellous season of adventure for the three friends. Mr Toad (he of Toad Hall) completes a happy foursome, but his tendency to get into hot water leads him into some rather hair-raising sc...
View Book
Author: Charles Dickens
Author Charles Dickens
Narrator Simon Vance
Duration 31h 21m
The most gorgeously theatrical of all Dickens's novels, Nicholas Nickleby follows the delightful adventures of a hearty young hero in nineteenth-century England. Nicholas, a gentleman's son fallen upon hard times, must set out to make his way in the world. His journey is accompanied by some of the most swaggering scoundrels and unforgettable eccent...
View Book
Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Author Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Narrator Various
Duration 1h 32m
Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Jessica Brown Findlay, Jamael Westman and Sheila Atim. 'The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing' Written with barely controlled fury after she was confined to her room for 'nerves' and forbidden to write, Gilman's pioneer...
View Book
Author: Charlotte Bronte
Author Charlotte Bronte
Narrator James Wilby
Duration 9h 30m
Working as a Professor in Brussels, William Crimsworth meets the fascinating Directrice of the neighbouring school, Mlle Zoraide Reuter, and recognising her as an intellectual equal, becomes powerfully attracted to her. Despite the fact that she is betrothed to another, Zoraide cannot release her hold over William, and tries to stand in the way of...
View Book
Author: Charlotte Bronte
Author Charlotte Bronte
Narrator Carole Boyd
Duration 2h 23m
Jane, an orphan, has her fair share of hardship before becoming a governess in the house of Mr Rochester and falling for her employer. But what are the strange noises coming from the attic, and may they thwart her romantic intentions? Jane Eyre, an orphan, has to suffer appalling conditions when she is sent away to a correctional school, then lands...
View Book
Author: Jerome K Jerome
Author Jerome K Jerome
Narrator Blake Morrison
Duration 7h 33m
Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Blake Harrison, star of The Inbetweeners, also known for his role on screen in A Very English Scandal and Todd Margaret, as well as on London's West End in Waitress. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by David Carroll. Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. a...
View Book
Author: Charlotte Bronte
Author Charlotte Bronte
Narrator Carole Boyd
Duration 2h 22m
Lucy Snowe, an English girl, goes to work as a governess in Brussels and finds solace in an unlikely suitor. Largely autobiographical fiction. Based on Charlotte's work as a governess in Brussels, Villette concerns the life of Lucy Snowe, an English girl who obtains a post at a girl's school in Belgium. With few friends and little money, Lucy conc...
View Book
Author: Charlotte Bronte
Author Charlotte Bronte
Narrator Mandy Weston
Duration 20h
Now considered by many to be Charlotte Brontë's best novel, though unlikely to eclipse Jane Eyre in fame and popularity, Villette is largely concerned with the experiences of Lucy Snowe in a girl's boarding school in a fictionalised Belgium. Lucy flees unhappiness in England only to find more abroad. Her love for Dr John unrequited, she slowly...
View Book
Author: Jonathan Swift
Author Jonathan Swift
Narrator Jasper Britton
Duration 35h 15m
Lemuel Gulliver, a slightly staid ship's doctor, relates the tales of his astonishing travels. He encounters the tiny, warring Lilliputians; the giant, sceptical Brobdingnagians; the ludicrously intellectual Laputans; and the idealistic - if rather stolid - Houyhnhnms and their bestial servants, the Yahoos. An immediate best-seller when it was firs...
View Book