Showing results by publisher "Jimcin Recordings" in Classics

Typee is an idyll of four months among primitive South Sea islanders. However, the books also shocked its original audience with a truthful account of Polynesian tribal life, including their very liberal sexual practices. Typee won Melville great fame during his life and remains a favorite today.

Editha is a young and very patriotic young landy. Her lover, George, is not quite as enthused about her "my country right or wrong attitude," but she convinces him to join the army to fight a "just" war. The results of this decision are very unexpected and very thought provoking. This is a very powerful story and is more the type of writing one would expect from the Vietnam War era, rather than the end of the Victorian era.

Les Miserables is set in the Parisian underworld. The protagonist, Jean Valjean, is sentenced to prison for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread. After his release, Valjean plans to rob monseigneur Myriel, a saint-like bishop, but cancels his plan. However, he forfeits his parole by committing a minor crime, and for this crime Valjean is haunted by the police inspector Javert. Valjean eventually reforms and becomes a successful businessman, benefactor, and mayor of a northern town.

"Paul's Case" was first published in 1905 in Willa Cather's first collection, The Troll Garden, which began her literary career. When the story was printed in McClure's magazine in May of the same year, it brought Cather to national attention. In 1920 the story was reprinted by Alfred Knopf in Youth and the Bright Medusa. "Paul's Case" examines the dangers of art and the struggles of youthful artists in a commercial world.

W.E.B. Du Bois said, on the launch of his groundbreaking 1903 treatise, The Souls of Black Folk, "for the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color-line", a prescient statement. Setting out to show to the audience "the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the 20th century", Du Bois explains the meaning of the emancipation, and its effect, and his views on the roles of the leaders of his race.

Ben-Hur could be said to be the first American blockbuster. When it was published in 1880, it sold over two-million copies and was translated into numerous languages. Wallace's original novel has been largely forgotten now, but as this reading shows, the story, together with the sweeping rhythm of the writer's prose, make it ideally suited to audio.

Ethan Frome is a 1911 novel by Edith Wharton, set in turn-of-the-century New England, in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. It is the story of a poor farmer, lonely and downtrodden, his wife Zeena, and their pretty and vivacious cousin, Mattie Silver. This is a short but powerful and engrossing drama, and although it is the least characteristic of the author's novels, it has become her most celebrated book.

"The King of the Golden River" is the magical story of a boy named Gluck, his evil brothers, and a dangerous quest to find treasure lurking in the Golden River. It is a classic tale and the only fairy tale the famous English author and critic ever wrote. It could also be classified as a fable or parable since it it explains "how things came to be".

Thomas Hardy brings us an England that once existed but no more. It is rural, traditional, pastoral - a society of mannered conduct that flows like a deep river where powerful currents eddy and swirl. In this powerful novel of love and disillusion, Hardy's heroine is torn between the three men in her life. Passionate but capricious, her romantic involvements have fascinated generations of readers.

Dostoevsky is primarily known for his monumental works like Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. However, he also wrote many excellent shorter works that embody the same exploration of human psychology on a smaller scale. The Dream of a Ridiculous Man is one of his best short pieces. No less a writer than Virginia Woolf says of Dostoevsky, "Out of Shakespeare there is no more exciting reading."

Kate Chopin was an American author of short stories and novels, mostly with a Louisiana Creole background. Today she is now considered a forerunner of the feminist authors of the 20th century. This powerful story concerns a wife who learns that her overbearing husband has been killed. The short period of mourning turns to the hope of her new freedom - but then comes the very unexpected climax.

O Pioneers! is one of Willa Cather's greatest novels. It is the story of a family of Swedish immigrants who take up farming in Nebraska. Young Alexandra Bergson becomes a heroine in the story when her father dies and she must take up the challenge of running the farm and taking care of her family. The portrait of Alexandra that Cather creates makes her one of the most-strong willed, intelligent and memorable characters in American literature.

Based on Japanese literature and foldlore, Kwaidan contains 17 stories. The story of Loichi, the blind biwa player who was called to perform for the dead; of Muso, the journeying priest who encountered a man eating goblin; of the samurai who outwitted the ghost of a dead man. All these plus 14 other spooly tales are included in this collection.

This book was published in 1891 and is a story of a lonely child, Dick Helder, who grows up to become a war artist. Following the British army into battle, he experiences many difficulties and internal struggles while providing some outstanding descriptions of the desert and desert warfare.

Sir Walter Scott gathered a popular audience, larger than any audience before. A great innovator,he created one of the outstanding literary forms of the past 200 years - the historical novel. In Ivanhoe, Scott brings to life 12th century England.

Lewis Carroll was a minister in the Church of England and a Professor of Mathematics at Christ Church College. In his diary he described "An expedition up the river to Godstowe with the three Liddells", daughters of the college Dean, "on which occasion I told them the fairy tale of 'Alice's Adventures Underground', which I undertook to write out for Alice".

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote many wonderful romantic and realistic short stories and a few incredible "on the edge" fantasy and supernatural stories. Although the story of "Benjamin Button" is quite different than the 2009 movie, the premise is the same - a man is born old and lives his life backwards! Fizgerald says he got the idea from Mark Twain's remark that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) is commonly accounted as one of the first Great American Novels. It was also one of the first novels ever written in the vernacular, or common speech, being told in the first person by the eponymous Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, best friend of Tom Sawyer.

Hear some of the greatest American essays ever written! This unabridged collection covers a multitude of subjects, including philosophy, politics, turkeys, and dogs.

The House of the Dead is a fascinating portrait of life in a Siberian prison camp - a life of great hardship and deprivation, yet filled with simple moments of humanity showing mankinds ability to adapt and survive in the most extreme of circumstances. Dostoevsky tells his story in a chronological order, from his character's arrival and his sense of alienation to his gradual adjustment to prison life.