AuthorOscar Wilde
NarratorSimon Callow
Duration2h 11m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Classics
PublisherHachette Audio
VersionUnabridged
A stunning new reading of Oscar Wilde's De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol. One of the most famous and successful writers of his day, Oscar Wilde was celebrated as much for his flamboyant personality and his prodigious wit as for his provocative essays, touching fairy stories and satirical plays. But in May of 1895, shortly after the premiere of his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest, he was sentenced to two years' hard labour for gross indecency after a trial that scandalised Britain, sending shock waves around the world, traumatising homosexuals everywhere and leading, in Britain, to 75 years of oppression of gay men. In this brand-new recording, actor, author and director Simon Callow brings his lifelong love of Wilde's work to the fore in these unmissable readings. Fresh from performing a stage production of De Profundis in London and Edinburgh, Callow brings the same energy and passion to this electric performance.
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: Oscar Wilde
Author Oscar Wilde
Narrator T P Mckenna
Duration 14m
Worthy but penniless Hughey Erskine is horrified by his painter friend's heartless attitude to the tramp posing for a portrait. Hughey gives the tramp money, only to learn there has been a mixup which may set Hughey back further from marrying his adoring fianc‚e.
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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: 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: Oscar Wilde
Author Oscar Wilde
Narrator Rupert Graves
Duration 2h 52m
Haunting and poignant, the great Oscar Wilde's famous supernatural story of youth and age is narrated brilliantly by Rupert Graves. Wilde's only novel combines sparkling wit, social satire and luxurious description. Full of many of his most famous witticisms, it is essentially a novel about the lust for eternal youth versus the inevitable reality o...
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Author: Oscar Wilde
Author Oscar Wilde
Narrator Simon Russell Beale
Duration 4h 54m
Written during his time in Reading Gaol, De Profundis is Oscar Wilde's moving letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, whose relationship with Wilde led to the poet's imprisonment. Here Wilde repudiates Lord Alfred and reflects on his ordeal, acknowledging how the depths of his sorrow have helped liberate him towards a fuller, freer wisdom. Brimming with bea...
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The Importance of Being Earnest
Author: Oscar Wilde
Author Oscar Wilde
Narrator Full Cast
Duration 2h 22m
Martin Clunes and Michael Sheen star in this full-cast production of Oscar Wilde's well-known comedy. Oscar Wilde's dazzling comedy about mistaken identities and secret engagements still delights audiences over a century after its first performance in 1895. Algernon Moncrieff, a bachelor-about-town, has invented an invalid friend called Bunbury in...
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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: 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: Oscar Wilde
Author Oscar Wilde
Narrator Greg Wise
Duration 9h 15m
After meeting Lord Henry Wotton, who remarks that 'youth is the only thing worth having', Dorian Gray becomes obsessed with preserving his looks. He wants to remain as youthful and fresh as he appears in his recently completed portrait by Basil Hallward. When Dorian states that he would give his soul to stay young, he has no idea of the horrors he'...
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