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The Aspern Papers (BBC Radio 4 Book At Bedtime)
- Narrated by: Samuel West
- Length: 1 hr and 35 mins
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The Aspern Papers (BBC Radio 4 Book At Bedtime)
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Publisher's summary
A BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime recording of Samuel West reading from the novella The Aspern Papers by Henry James, set against the decaying grandeur of Venice. Originally broadcast 26 April - 4 May 2010.
Henry James took as inspiration for this tale the story of a mistress of Byron's who outlived the poet into lonely old age. He transposed the setting to Venice and cast the city he loved as a character in a taut narrative of literary theft and deception.
The lure of previously unseen papers relating to the long-dead poet, Jeffrey Aspern, brings one of his literary editors to Venice in the grip of an obsession. He broaches the palazzo of Aspern's ancient and discarded lover, Miss Juliana Bordereau, and deceives her fluttering middle-aged niece, Miss Tina, into believing he wants to lodge with them in order to cultivate the garden - all in his quest to secure the elusive letters and papers.
Read by Samuel West. Abridged and produced by Christine Hall.
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-
Story5 out of 5 stars 38
Through a series of calculated moves that involve death and a large inheritance, a small community is rocked and shrouded in mystery at the hands of the conniving Sir Percival Glyde, who is interested only in making himself wealthy at the hands of others.... Celebrated as one of the first popular mystery novels, The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, skillfully incorporates the twisting and turning of more than a few plot lines that all manage to converge beautifully at the end of the work.
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3 out of 5 stars
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horrible technically - echoes at most of the words
- By James D. Coburn on 12-30-15
By: Wilkie Collins
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The Woman in White
- By: Wilkie Collins
- Narrated by: Josephine Bailey, Simon Prebble
- Length: 25 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,336
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,986
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,999
One of the greatest mystery thrillers ever written, Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White was a phenomenal best seller in the 1860s, achieving even greater success than works by Charles Dickens. Full of surprise, intrigue, and suspense, this vastly entertaining novel continues to enthrall audiences today.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Gripping novel, excellent production
- By David on 01-18-11
By: Wilkie Collins
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North and South
- By: Elizabeth Gaskell
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7,183
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 6,386
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 6,390
Written at the request of Charles Dickens, North and South is a book about rebellion that poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Gaskell expertly blends individual feeling with social concern and her heroine, Margaret Hale, is one of the most original creations of Victorian literature. When Margaret Hale's father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience she is forced to leave her comfortable home in the tranquil countryside of Hampshire....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Delightful
- By Sally on 01-04-10
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The Idiot [Blackstone]
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
- Length: 22 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,091
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 811
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Story4 out of 5 stars 819
Prince Myshkin, is thrust into the heart of a society more concerned with wealth, power, and sexual conquest than the ideals of Christianity. Myshkin soon finds himself at the center of a violent love triangle in which a notorious woman and a beautiful young girl become rivals for his affections. Extortion, scandal, and murder follow, testing the wreckage left by human misery to find "man in man."
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5 out of 5 stars
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Intense and painfully sad
- By Tad on 04-27-12
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The Gambler
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, C. J. Hogarth - translator
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
The Gambler is a psychologically probing novel concerning the gambling episodes, tangled love affairs, and complicated lives of Alexis Ivanovitch, a young gambling addict; Polina Alexandrovna, the woman he loves; a pair of French adventurers; and other characters. Narrated by Alexis, this short novel is based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's own experiences as a compulsive gambler.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book, great narration, proper pronunciation
- By Mike R. on 09-16-11
By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, and others
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Jane Eyre
- By: Charlotte Brontë
- Narrated by: Thandiwe Newton
- Length: 19 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 19,857
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 18,144
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Story5 out of 5 stars 18,064
Following Jane from her childhood as an orphan in Northern England through her experience as a governess at Thornfield Hall, Charlotte Brontë's Gothic classic is an early exploration of women's independence in the mid-19th century and the pervasive societal challenges women had to endure. At Thornfield, Jane meets the complex and mysterious Mr. Rochester, with whom she shares a complicated relationship that ultimately forces her to reconcile the conflicting passions of romantic love and religious piety.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Perfect!!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-21-16
By: Charlotte Brontë
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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 Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 30 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 339
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 289
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 282
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is closely modelled on the 18h-century novels that Charles Dickens loved as a child, such as Robinson Crusoe, in which the fortunes of a hero shape the plot. The likeable young Nicholas, left penniless on the death of his father, sets off in search of better prospects.
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5 out of 5 stars
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loved it much more than expected!
- By Blue Ridge Book Lover on 05-29-12
By: Charles Dickens
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The Shuttle
- By: Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Narrated by: Tabi That
- Length: 19 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
Rosalie Vanderpoel, the daughter of an American multimillionaire marries an impoverished English baronet and goes to live in England. She all but loses contact with her family in America. Years later her younger sister Bettina, beautiful, intelligent and extremely rich, goes to England to find what has happened to her sister. She finds Rosalie shabby and dispirited, cowed by her husband's ill-treatment. Bettina sets about to rectify matters.
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5 out of 5 stars
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More than Lovely
- By jTacy67 on 01-17-18
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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 5,079
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 4,607
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,570
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
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The Castle
- By: Franz Kafka
- Narrated by: Allan Corduner
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 142
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Story4 out of 5 stars 119
A land-surveyor, known only as K., arrives at a small village permanently covered in snow and dominated by a castle to which access seems permanently denied. K.'s attempts to discover why he has been called constantly run up against the peasant villagers, who are in thrall to the absurd bureaucracy that keeps the castle shut, and the rigid hierarchy of power among the self-serving bureaucrats themselves.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A masculine and coquettish reading
- By Alan on 05-27-12
By: Franz Kafka
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Howards End
- By: E. M. Forster
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 255
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 230
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 223
Howards End is a beautifully subtle tale of two very different families brought together by an unusual event. The Schlegels are intellectuals, devotees of art and literature. The Wilcoxes are practical and materialistic, leading lives of "telegrams and anger". When the elder Mrs. Wilcox dies and her family discovers she has left their country home - Howards End - to one of the Schlegel sisters, a crisis between the two families is precipitated that takes years to resolve.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic Narration in Delightful Story
- By Wren on 05-05-18
By: E. M. Forster
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Jude The Obscure
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 246
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 198
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Story4 out of 5 stars 197
This is the story of a young country workman obsessed by his ambition to become an Oxford student, interwoven with his fraught relationships with two women.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Staggering
- By Tad Davis on 02-16-10
By: Thomas Hardy
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Swann's Way (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Marcel Proust, Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff - translator
- Narrated by: Tim Bruce
- Length: 20 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 21
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 19
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Story4 out of 5 stars 20
When the narrator of Swann's Way dips a petite madeleine into hot tea, the act transports him to his childhood in the French town of Combray. Out of his Pandora's box of reflections comes a memory of an old family friend, Swann - a man who was long ago undone by romantic desire and cruel reality. In this reverie lie the insights the author seeks about his own life and ageless truths about the ephemeral nature of emotions, places, and, ultimately, love.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Gasping for air!
- By Tom Dolan on 01-03-19
By: Marcel Proust, and others