AuthorAngela Thirkell
NarratorElaine Claxton
Duration9h 59m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Classics, Literature
PublisherLittle, Brown
VersionUnabridged
Jack Middleton likes to imagine himself a country squire. At weekends he retires to Laverings Estate with his wife, Catherine. He may be pompous, and they may seem ill-matched, but the couple are devoted to each other. When Jack's widowed sister, Lilian, and her two stepchildren arrive to spend the summer in the neighbouring house, he dreads the intrusion to his idyll: Daphne, capable and ambitious, is too lively for his taste, whereas her brother Denis, a composer, he finds a crashing bore. But their wit and good sense charm the residents of Barchester, and they win over Lord Bond with an impromptu Gilbert and Sullivan evening. Even Jack begins to thaw. Before long, Daphne and Lord Bond's son become attracted to each other, but each believes the other is attached to someone else. Can disaster be averted before she marries the wrong man? First published in 1939, Before Lunch is a sparkling comedy.
Author: Angela Thirkell
Author Angela Thirkell
Narrator Catrin Walker-Booth
Duration 13h 17m
The county of Barsetshire is aflutter with preparations. With the wedding of Lucy Marling and Sam Adams fast approaching, and Lucy's brother Oliver brooding over his ill-fated tendre for glamorous Jessica Dean, Mrs Marling calls for reinforcements. Help arrives in the form of charming writer Isabel Dale, still mourning the loss of her fiancé...
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Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Author Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Narrator Richard E. Grant
Duration 2h 12m
He is the Little Prince, the mysterious, innocent and beautiful boy who appears to a pilot stranded in the desert and makes an extraordinary request. He has captured the hearts of millions of readers around the world since his story first appeared in 1943, written down by an aristocratic French aviator who soon after disappeared during a flight acr...
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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...
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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...
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Author: Emile Zola
Author Emile Zola
Narrator Traci Svensgaard
Duration 6h 41m
In a dingy apartment on the Passage du Pont-Neuf in Paris, Th‚rŠse Raquin is trapped in a loveless marriage to her sickly cousin, Camille. The numbing tedium of her life is suddenly shattered when she embarks on a turbulent affair with her husband's earthy friend, Laurent. But their passion for each other soon compels the lovers to commit a crime t...
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Author: Angela Thirkell
Author Angela Thirkell
Narrator Catrin Walker-Booth
Duration 11h 39m
Change is in the air in Barsetshire. The country may have a new queen, but Greshambury has a new rector, Canon Fewling, and a returned prodigal daughter: the beautiful, frivolous Rose Fairweather. But for lonely Margot Phelps, caring for her elderly parents in Jutland Cottage, the future holds little promise - until a group of benevolent neighbours...
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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...
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Author: Angela Thirkell
Author Angela Thirkell
Narrator Elaine Caxton
Duration 10h 28m
It is summer 1939 and the social event of the year is about to take place: Rose Birkett, a flighty beauty with a penchant for breaking engagements and hearts, is finally getting married, and the whole village - especially her parents - breathes a sigh of relief. By autumn, however, summer weddings seem a distant memory as war reaches Barsetshire. W...
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Author: Angela Thirkell
Author Angela Thirkell
Narrator Elaine Claxton
Duration 11h 27m
As the war continues it brings its own set of trials to the the village of Northbridge. Eight officers of the Barsetshire Regiment have been billeted at the rectory, and Mrs Villars, the Rector's wife, is finding the attentions of Lieutenant Holden (who doesn't seem to mind that she is married to his host) quite exhausting. The middle-aged ladies a...
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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...
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