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The Tragic Muse, Volume 1
- Narrated by: Victor Villar-Hauser
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
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The Tragic Muse, Volume 1
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Henry James, in his preface to The Tragic Muse, remarks that he’d long wanted to write about the artist's life and "the general question of its having to be not altogether easily paid for". To this end he describes two young artists' journeys toward self-fulfillment. There’s Nick, the young aspiring painter who must come to terms with his family's desire for him to go into politics. Parallel to Nick is Miriam whom he paints as "the tragic muse" and who devotes herself without reservation to her own art, acting. Victor Villar-Hauser’s eager and earnest performance captures this deeply personal view of the artist’s place in the world.
This is volume one the work, which was originally published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly.Publisher's summary
"You must paint her just like that... as the Tragic Muse," suggests one of James' characters to Nick Dormer, the young Englishman who, during the course of the novel, will courageously resist the glittering Parliamentary career desired for him by his family, in order to paint. His progress is counterpointed by the "Tragic Muse" of the title, Miriam Rooth, one of James' most fierily beautiful creations, a great actress indifferent to social reputation and triumphantly dedicated to her art.
In portraying the conflict between art and "the world", which is his novel's central idea, James engaged obliquely with current debates on the new aestheticism of Pater and Wilde and on the nature of the actor's performance. Through the living complexity of his protagonists, he reveals how much, as Philip Horne puts it, "to take art seriously as an end in itself...is still a provocative course."
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Classic Novels are the best.
- By Maureen Hart on 09-07-23
By: Jane Austen
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Can You Forgive Her?
- By: Anthony Trollope
- Narrated by: Timothy West
- Length: 28 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 904
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 775
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 770
Can You Forgive Her? is the first of the six in the Palliser series. Trollope inextricably binds together the issues of parliamentary election and marriage, of politics and privacy. The values and aspirations of the governing stratum of Victorian society are ruthlessly examined, and none remains unscathed. But above all Trollope focuses on the predicament of women. 'What should a woman do with her life?' asks Alice Vavasor of herself, and this theme is echoed by every other woman in the audiobook.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Superb performance and sound
- By David on 05-21-10
By: Anthony Trollope
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The Rise of Silas Lapham
- By: William Dean Howells
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4 out of 5 stars 49
Howells’ best-known work and a subtle classic of its time, The Rise of Silas Lapham is an elegant tale of Boston society and manners. After garnering a fortune in the paint business, Silas Lapham moves his family from their Vermont farm to the city of Boston in order to improve his social position. The consequences of this endeavor are both humorous and tragic as the greedy Silas brings his company to the brink of bankruptcy.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Important for the Era
- By Brent on 03-19-23
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The Claverings
- By: Anthony Trollope
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 20 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 170
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 153
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 151
At the opening of The Claverings (1866) the beautiful Julia Brabazon jilts her lover Harry Clavering in order to make a marriage of convenience with a wealthy but dissolute earl. Harry licks his wounds, leaves London to train as a civil engineer, and falls in love with his employer's daughter, to whom he soon becomes engaged. But when Julia returns unexpectedly as a wealthy widow, the flame of Harry's old love is rekindled.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A classic love triangle in a classic novel...:)
- By Lidia Chymkowska on 12-17-18
By: Anthony Trollope
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Agnes Grey
- By: Anne Brontë
- Narrated by: Emilia Fox
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 718
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 623
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 617
Having lost the family savings on risky investments, Richard Grey removes himself from family life and suffers a bout of depression. Feeling helpless and frustrated, his youngest daughter, Agnes, applies for a job as a governess to the children of a wealthy, upper-class, English family. Ecstatic at the thought that she has finally gained control and freedom over her own life, Agnes arrives at the Bloomfield mansion armed with confidence and purpose.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved it
- By Kerry on 05-22-10
By: Anne Brontë
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Agnes Grey
- By: Anne Bronte
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 113
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 113
Written when women---and workers generally---had few rights in England, Agnes Grey exposes the brutal inequities of the rigid class system in mid-19th-century Britain. Agnes comes from a respectable middle-class family, but their financial reverses have forced her to seek work as a governess.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Make.it.stop.
- By Wayne on 03-18-22
By: Anne Bronte
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David Copperfield
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Richard Armitage
- Length: 36 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 7,311
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 6,756
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 6,714
Between his work on the 2014 Audible Audiobook of the Year, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Novel, and his performance of Classic Love Poems, narrator Richard Armitage ( The Hobbit, Hannibal) has quickly become a listener favorite. Now, in this defining performance of Charles Dickens' classic David Copperfield, Armitage lends his unique voice and interpretation, truly inhabiting each character and bringing real energy to the life of one of Dickens' most famous characters.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A PERFECT narration of an English classic!
- By Wayne on 09-03-17
By: Charles Dickens
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Night and Day
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 18 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 120
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 108
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 106
Written before she began her experiments in the writing of fiction, Virginia Woolf's second novel, Night and Day, is a story about a group of young people trying to discover what it means to fall in love. It asks all the big questions: What does it mean to fall in love? Does marriage grant happiness? What is happiness? Night and Day is a conventional novel; however, it maps out for us the world of Virginia Woolf in its wondrous prose: For her it was the beginning, leading on to a prolonged engagement with her search for the means to express the "inner life".
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4 out of 5 stars
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"After all, what is love?"
- By Eman Abd Allah on 12-13-16
By: Virginia Woolf
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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
- By: Anne Brontë
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah Agliotta
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 535
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 476
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 471
Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, this novel had an instant and phenomenal success and is widely considered to be one of the first sustained feminist novels. A mysterious widow, Mrs. Helen Graham, arrives at Wildfell Hall, a nearby old mansion. A source of curiosity for the small community, the reticent Helen and her young son Arthur are slowly drawn into the social circles of the village.
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2 out of 5 stars
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A good story ruined by the narrator
- By i. Ski on 04-17-14
By: Anne Brontë
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The Idiot
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Alastair Cameron
- Length: 23 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
Young Prince Mishkin is that rare thing - a "completely beautiful human being". He is honest, humble, generous, and selfless, but unfortunately these traits mean he is often mistaken for an idiot. Upon his return to St. Petersburg, after being away at a Swiss sanatorium for the treatment of epilepsy, Prince Mishkin is taken under the wing of the wife of General Yepanchin, who arranges for him to live with the family of her money-obsessed friend Ganya.
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5 out of 5 stars
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wow.
- By Michal Krawczyk on 04-25-17
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The Mill on the Floss
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Laura Paton
- Length: 20 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 345
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 315
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 315
Maggie Tulliver has two lovers: Philip Wakem, son of her father’s enemy, and Stephen Guest, already promised to her cousin. But the love she wants most in the world is that of her brother Tom. Maggie’s struggle against her passionate and sensual nature leads her to a deeper understanding and to eventual tragedy
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great compassion
- By nina lalumia on 12-26-16
By: George Eliot
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Dombey and Son
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 36 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 123
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
In this carefully crafted novel, Dickens reveals the complexity of London society in the enterprising 1840s as he takes the listener into the business firm and home of one of its most representative patriarchs, Paul Dombey.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Perfect pair
- By Philip on 03-25-08
By: Charles Dickens
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The Custom of the Country
- By: Edith Wharton
- Narrated by: Barbara Caruso
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 356
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 316
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 311
Edith Wharton stands among the finest writers of early 20th-century America. In The Custom of the Country, Wharton’s scathing social commentary is on full display through the beautiful and manipulative Undine Spragg. When Undine convinces her nouveau riche parents to move to New York, she quickly injects herself into high society. But even a well-to-do husband isn’t enough for Undine, whose overwhelming lust for wealth proves to be her undoing.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Cannot recommend a better narrator!
- By Esther on 07-29-12
By: Edith Wharton
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Middlemarch
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 35 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,082
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 4,610
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,573
Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Best Audible book ever
- By Molly-o on 12-25-11
By: George Eliot
What listeners say about The Tragic Muse, Volume 1
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
- Yao
- 02-11-11
impossibly bad reader
Seriously, this is the worst reader I have ever heard. The voice is very fine and the accent is perfect for James but he doesn't seem to understand what he is reading. The inflection is sing-song - pitched and paced seemingly without regard to the meaning of sentence or word. Ninety-percent of the time the reader puts emphasis on the wrong syllable of a word and/or the wrong word in a sentence. Luckily, the reading is slow enough to allow a listener to sort out the word-puzzle sentence by sentence without falling behind. At first I honestly thought the reading style was some sort of conceptual play on the bad acting of the Miriam Ruth character - I soon realized it was just a terrible performance by the reader - as though he were reading from a book that had only one word per page-turn and could only guess the likely role each word might play in a sentence before flipping the page to read the next - it was torture.
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