Showing results by publisher "ISIS Audio Books" in Classics

Set in the industrialising England of the Napoleonic wars, a period of bad harvests, Luddite riots, and economic unrest, Shirley is the story of two contrasting heroines and the men they love. One is the shy Caroline Helstone, trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory, whose life represents the plight of single women in the 19th century. The other is the vivacious Shirley Keeldar, who inherits a local estate and whose wealth liberates her from convention.

With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls's boarding school in the small town of Villette. There, she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, a headmistress who spies on her staff, and her own complex feelings: first for the school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor, Paul Emmanuel.

Previously unpublished in unabridged audio, these three works (one novel unpublished in her lifetime and two unfinished fragments) reveal Jane Austen's development as a great artist.

Originally written as a protest against cruelty and ill treatment of horses, this compassionate tale has captured the imagination of generations of children. The saga begins with Black Beauty as a young thoroughbred in a stable with his beloved Squire Gordon, who is forced to sell the horse, beginning a tragic but exciting journey. The sweet-tempered horse must deal with broken knees, narrow escapes from disaster, and the drudgery of pulling a London cab for a cruel owner.

Deirdre Weston, a London journalist, returns to her family home in Armagh to come to terms with the death of her mother. Faced with painful memories of her own past, Deirdre almost despairs of the task she has set herself. At the point of her deepest need, she is comforted by Deara, a mysterious young woman from fifth-century Ireland who draws her into the Druidic world of Tara, where the conflicts echo those of troubled 20th-century Ulster.

Rogue Herries tells the story of the larger-than-life Francis Herries, who uproots his family from Yorkshire and brings them to live in Borrowdale, where their life is as dramatic as the landscape surrounding them.

Proud, violent, and impetuous, he despises his first wife, sells his mistress at a county fair, and forms a great love for the teenage gypsy Mirabell Starr. Alongside this turbulent story, runs that of his son David, with enemies of his own, and that of his gentle daughter, Deborah.