AuthorJohn Galsworthy
NarratorMartin Jarvis
SeriesThe Forsyte Saga, Book 2
Duration5h 9m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Classics
Key StageA Level
PublisherCSA Word
VersionAbridged
The second part of John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga, chronicling the downfall of an upper middle class family in the turbulent period of social change at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries. This book tells of the struggle between Soames and his beautiful wife Irene, who leaves him but cannot persuade him to grant a divorce. While Soames cannot accept Irene's dissent, he insists his sister deal as she must with her own failed marriage. Irene gains independence through her friendship with Soames' Uncle, Old Jolyon, who leaves her a fortune in his will, and she flees the country, but Soames follows her. The series is praised for its vivid, memorable characters and portrayal of the power changes at the end of the Victorian era.
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...
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Author: Emile Zola
Author Emile Zola
Narrator Leighton Pugh
Duration 19h 55m
Germinal is one of the most striking novels in the French tradition. Widely regarded as Zola's masterpiece, the novel describes the working conditions of French coalminers in the 1860s in harsh and realistic terms it is visceral, graphic and unrelenting. Its strong socialist principles and vivid accounts of the miners' strikes meant that the novel...
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Author: John Galsworthy
Author John Galsworthy
Narrator Stephen Kemble
SeriesThe Forsyte Saga, Book 6
Duration 12h 7m
Michael Mont is succeeding in his public life in Parliament, but holds grave doubts about his private life and his wife, Fleur. Fleur's original love, Jon Forsyte, her cousin and the son of her father's ex-wife, returns to England where a meeting is inevitable. Fleur's undying love for Jon is disclosed.
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Author: John Galsworthy
Author John Galsworthy
Narrator Stephen Kemble
SeriesThe Forsyte Saga, Book 5
Duration 9h 55m
'The Silver Spoon' continues the tale of Soames' daughter Fleur. Married to Michael Mont, in line for a Barony, the story focuses on Michael's start in Parliament and Fleur's dissatisfaction with her marriage. The American, Frances Wilmont, enters the scene bringing news that Fleur's real love, Jon, forbidden to her as the son of her father's ex-wi...
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Author: John Galsworthy
Author John Galsworthy
Narrator Joseph Millson
Duration 3h 32m
Joseph Millson and Jessica Raine star in a brand new BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation continuing John Galsworthy's saga of the Forsyte family spanning 50 years. Galsworthy's novels The Silver Spoon and Swan Song, dramatized here in 7 episodes, continue to follow Fleur Forsyte, as she falls in love with Jon, and later, escaping heartbreak, mar...
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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: Charlotte Bronte
Author Charlotte Bronte
Narrator Charlotte Ritchie
Duration 21h 29m
Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Charlotte Ritchie, best known for her roles as Oregon in Channel 4's Fresh Meat, Hannah in the BBC Three comedy Siblings, and as Barbara Gilbert in BBC drama Call the Midwife. With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding sch...
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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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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...
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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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