Victorian Classics

A mysterious boatman on the Thames, a drowned heir, a dustman and his wife, and a host of other Dickens characters populate this novel of relationships between the classes, money, greed, and love. The 58 characters are presented with remarkable clarity by David Timson.

The unapologetic intensity with which Emily Brontë wrote this story ensures that it will forever be considered one of the greatest works of English literature. A passionate tale of a chaotic and often violent love, Wuthering Heights transcends your average romance and, with its Gothic undertones, takes the listener on a journey through one man's lustful hunt for revenge.

The orphaned Elsie Camden learned as a girl that there were two kinds of wizards in the world: those who pay for the power to cast spells and those, like her, born with the ability to break them. But as an unlicensed magic user, her gift is a crime. Commissioned by an underground group known as the Cowls, Elsie uses her spellbreaking to push back against the aristocrats and help the common man. Elite magic user Bacchus Kelsey is one elusive spell away from his mastership when he catches Elsie breaking an enchantment. To protect her secret, Elsie strikes a bargain.

When the self-effacing 10-year-old Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy relations at Mansfield Park she seems shy and withdrawn beside her witty and vivacious cousins. Growing up in the Bertram household, she is always treated as an inferior, only finding an ally in her cousin Edmund. But Fanny's steadfast and purposeful character eventually makes her an indispensable part of the household. During the absence of Fanny's uncle, the others become entangled in a maze of flirtation and intrigue upon the arrival of Mary Crawford and her brother Henry.

Emma can be enjoyed as a charming love story, a detective story, and a comic and lively picture of English life 200 years ago. Austen's beautiful, clever, wilful but fallible heroine Emma Woodhouse believes she knows best. Perfectly content with her life she sees no need for either love or marriage, yet nothing pleases her more than meddling in the romantic lives of others.

Few ghost stories are as chilling as the ones written by Victorian writers. Featuring work by H.G. Wells, Edith Wharton, F.G. Loring and Florence Marryat, this second volume of eight enduring stories, some well-known, others less familiar, transport you to a cosy fireside to hear tales of disembodied voices, haunted objects and unknown entities lurking in the shadows cast by candlelight.

Propelled into society by his ever-hopeful father, Frank is introduced to a variety of professions in order to make his fortune. Not industrious by nature, however, Frank finds working life a challenge, and by his 25th birthday, he has failed medicine, portrait-painting, caricaturing, and even forgery. Disenchanted with life, he despairs of ever finding something to commit to — until he meets Alicia Dulcifer and her inexplicably wealthy father.

Set on Egdon Heath, a fictional barren moor in Wessex, Eustacia Vye longs for the excitement of city life but is cut off from the world in her grandfather's lonely cottage. Clym Yeobright who has returned to the area to become a schoolmaster seems to offer everything she dreams of: passion, excitement and the opportunity to escape. However, Clym's ambitions are quite different, and marriage only increases Eustacia's destructive restlessness, drawing others into a tangled web of deceit and unhappiness.

Swann's Way is Marcel Proust's literary masterpiece and the first part of the multivolume audiobook Remembrance of Things Past. In the opening volume, the narrator travels back in time to recall his childhood and to introduce the listener to Charles Swann, a wealthy friend of the family and celebrity in the Parisian social scene. He again travels back, this time to the youth of Charles Swann in the French town of Combray, to tell the story of the love affair that took place before his own birth.

Featuring work by M. R. James, Edith Nesbit, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Atherton and many more, this enhanced audio collection of eight enduring stories - some well-known, others less familiar - transport you to a candlelit fireside to hear tales of lonely coastlines, deadly rivers, dark, creaking corridors, horrific, everlasting love and unknown entities lurking in black velvet shadows.

The most gorgeously theatrical of all Dickens's novels, Nicholas Nickleby follows the delightful adventures of a hearty young hero in 19th-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 eccentrics in Dickens's pantheon.

Arthur Conan Doyle was the greatest genre writer Britain has ever produced. Throughout a long writing career, he drew on his own medical background, his travels, and his increasing interest in spiritualism and the occult to produce a spectacular array of Gothic tales. Many of Doyle's writings are recognized as the very greatest tales of terror. They range from hauntings in the polar wasteland to evil surgeons and malevolent jungle landscapes. This collection brings together over 30 of Conan Doyle's best Gothic tales

You, dear listener, continue at your own risk. It is not for the faint of heart - no more so than the study of dragons itself. But such study offers rewards beyond compare: to stand in a dragon's presence, even for the briefest of moments - even at the risk of one's life - is a delight that, once experienced, can never be forgotten….All the world, from Scirland to the farthest reaches of Eriga, know Isabella, Lady Trent, to be the world's preeminent dragon naturalist.

When Elizabeth Bennet first knew Mr. Darcy, she despised him and was sure he felt the same. Angered by his pride and reserve, influenced by the lies of the charming Mr. Wickham, she never troubled herself to believe he was anything other than the worst of men - until, one day, he unexpectedly proposed. Mr. Darcy's passionate avowal of love causes Elizabeth to reevaluate everything she thought she knew about him.

In this world of bribes, vendettas, and swindling, in which heiresses are gambled and won, Trollope's characters embody all the vices: Lady Carbury is 'false from head to foot'; her son Felix has 'the instincts of a horse, not approaching the higher sympathies of a dog'; and Melmotte - the colossal figure who dominates the book - is a 'horrid, big, rich scoundrel...a bloated swindler...a vile city ruffian'. But as vile as he is, he is considered one of Trollope's greatest creations.

London, 1849. Charles Dickens has set up Urania Cottage as a sanctuary for fallen women. But he is shocked when the matron's assistant - Patience Brooke - is found hanging outside the property, covered in blood. Desperate to protect the reputation of the Home and to stop a scandal from spreading, Dickens takes the investigation into his own hands. With the help of his good friend, Superintendent Sam Jones of Bow Street, and a description of the suspect as "a man with a crooked face", Dickens's search takes him deep into the filthy slums of Victorian London.

Doctor Thorne adopts his niece Mary, keeping secret her illegitimate birth as he introduces her to the best local social circles. There she meets and falls in love with Frank Gresham - the heir to a vastly mortgaged estate and obliged to find a wealthy wife. Only Doctor Thorne knows that Mary is to inherit a large legacy that will make her acceptable to the otherwise disapproving middle-class society to which Frank belongs.

Lena Todd is the perfect spy. Nobody suspects the flirtatious debutante could be a rebel against London's vicious elite - not even the ruthless Will Carver, the one man she can't twist around her little finger. Will Carver is more than man, he's a verwolfen and he wants nothing to do with the dangerous beauty who drives him to the very edge of control. But when he finds Lena in possession of a coded letter, he realizes she's in a world of trouble. To protect her, he'll have to seduce the truth from her before it's too late.

Anne Elliott foolishly let true love slip through her fingers when she allowed herself to be persuaded that the man she adored was an unacceptable candidate for marriage. Now, after years of carrying a torch, Anne finds herself confronted by the dashing Wentworth, newly returned from years at sea. In this, her final novel, Jane Austen savagely skewers the rigid social sensibilities of the day with brilliant satire.

Published in 1853, Bleak House is one of Dickens' most mature and ambitious novels. From London's slums to the Court of Chancery, where the endless case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce devours the future of several generations, the author's canvas of Victorian society vividly conveys an indictment of legal corruption, a riveting tale of detection, and a compelling emotional drama.