Classics

The Greek myths are amongst the greatest stories ever told, passed down through millennia and inspiring writers and artists as varied as Shakespeare, Michelangelo, James Joyce....

In a sleepy village in the Shire, a young hobbit is entrusted with an immense task. He must make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ruling Ring of Power - the only thing that prevents the Dark Lord Sauron’s evil dominion....

The company of the Ring is torn asunder. Frodo and Sam continue their journey alone down the great River Anduin - alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go....

Audible is proud to present Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection, read by Stephen Fry, a lifelong fan of Doyle's detective fiction....

The armies of the Dark Lord are massing as his evil shadow spreads even wider. Men, Dwarves, Elves and Ents unite forces to battle against the Dark. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam struggle further into Mordor in their heroic quest to destroy the One Ring....

One winter night, seven men and a woman are parachuted onto a mountainside in wartime Germany....

Animal Farm is George Orwell's great socio-political allegory set in a farmyard....

Read by Stephen Fry himself, Heroes harnesses the magic of ancient legends in an entertaining and modern retelling in Fry's iconic and captivating narration.... 

The Silmarillion is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien’s world....

The second Dune installment explores new developments on the planet Arrakis, with its intricate social order and strange, threatening environment....

Often compared to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid’s Tale and Naomi Alderman's The Power - Woman on the Edge of Time has been hailed as a classic of speculative science fiction.... 

George Orwell's paean to the end of an idyllic era in British history, Coming Up for Air is a poignant account of one man's attempt to recapture childhood innocence as war looms on the horizon....

Big Brother is watching you.... 1984 is the year in which it happens. The world is divided into three superstates....

Ben Aaronovitch has stormed the best-seller list with his superb London crime series - a unique blend of police procedural; loving detail about the greatest character of all, London; and a dash of the supernatural....

The sand-blasted world of Arrakis has become green, watered, and fertile....

Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the '30s....

In the fifth of his best-selling series Ben Aaronovitch takes Peter Grant out of whatever comfort zone he might have found and takes him out of London.

Geralt of Rivia is a Witcher, a man whose magic powers and lifelong training have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless assassin....

Audible Studios presents this brand new performance by Stephen Fry of some of his favourite Jeeves stories from P.G. Wodehouse, with an exclusive introduction....

If you find yourself ruminating on questions like "Where have all the dragons gone?" then this is the story for you....

A liberated young schoolteacher at an Edinburgh girls' school during the 1930's instructs her girls on the ways of life. Ignoring the more mundane subjects, she teaches them of love, politics and art....

Somerset Maugham is one of the best-loved short story writers of the last 100 years....

Some feel the Lady, newly risen from centuries in thrall, stands between humankind and evil. Some feel she is evil itself....

Clare and Henry have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was 36. They were married when Clare was 23 and Henry was 31....

When the mysterious Green Knight arrives unbidden at the Round Table one Christmas, only Gawain is brave enough to take up his challenge....

The last great 19th-century Russian novelist brings his symbolism together with realism, to blend real and fictional people together in the Russian revolutionary period of 1905 that laid the seeds for the 1917 dark Soviet period that Bely anticipates, set in the Paris of Russia, St Petersburg. An intriguing fantasy mixed with reality, dark and bright colors, with a dose of romanticism.

Originally composed of six vignettes commissioned by Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time was later expanded by Hemingway himself, with the addition of 12 more short writings. 

"Animal Farm" is Orwell's classic satire of the Russian Revolution - an account of the bold struggle, initiated by the animals, that transforms Mr. Jones's Manor Farm into Animal Farm - a wholly democratic society built on the credo that All Animals Are Created Equal. But are they?

Largely autobiographical, Christ in Concrete opens with the dramatic Good Friday collapse of a building under construction, crucifying in concrete an Italian construction worker, whose death leaves his pregnant wife and eight children impoverished. His oldest son, Paul, at just 12 years old, must take over his father’s role—and his job. 

More than 400 years ago, Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616) sent his irrepressible optimist of a hero out to tilt at windmills—and Don Quixote and his philosophical squire, Sancho Panza, still remain among the world's most popular and entertaining figures, as well as the archetypes for the tall, thin straight man and his short, stocky comic sidekick. This is sequential storytelling and art at its finest, as we follow Don Quixote on his search for adventure and chivalrous quests—and he will not be defeated by such foes as logic, propriety, or sanity.

Bertie’s friends are stepping it up. In order to de-sticky their wickets, they are asking him to impersonate themselves to country relatives, adopt a wayward infant, and even steal a marginally libelous manuscript. And to top it all off, Jeeves himself details his surreptitious plans for the young master to make an impromptu speech at a girl’s school. What’s a spirited cove to do? 

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story of extraordinary power, exploring issues of mental health, the role of women in society, and the oppressive nature of the patriarchy. Told in the first person, the story follows the plight of a woman confined by her husband in a small room in an old mansion—ostensibly for her own good. As her boredom increases and her sanity deteriorates, she becomes fixated on the wallpaper in the room, the yellow design of which includes an image of a trapped woman.

At the end of the 19th century, fourteen-year-old Ántonia Shimerda has realized the immigrant's dream. She has just arrived in rural Nebraska with her Bohemian (Czech) family at the same time as ten-year-old Jim Burden, an orphan sent to live with his grandparents. While Jim's family is prosperous and steady, the Shimerdas quickly find themselves mired in poverty and struggle to make ends meet. But they live near to each other (by pioneer standards), and the two youngsters become close. Ántonia's warmth belongs to the land and the people who love her. For Jim, Ántonia is home.

The oyster party had the kiss of death upon it—even though there were two 'R's in the month. Miriam Birdseye—famed revue star and sleuth—could have told you that from the start. She isn't a bit surprised to learn that her fiancé's mother died in the night. But who at the seedy Sussex hotel would have poisoned the bivalves? Could it be the hotel proprietor—a handsome, drunken bankrupt? His put-upon wife? Miriam's impressively moustachioed fiancé? Or the menacing, unsavoury chef?

The Cricket on the Hearth, published in 1845, is the third in Charles Dickens' series of "Christmas Books." The story centers around the hearth and home of the good-hearted carrier, John Peerybingle, and his young wife Mary—affectionately called Dot by her husband. Their baby boy is cared for by a clumsy nanny, Tilly Slowboy. The household is completed by Boxer the dog and the cricket on the hearth, who acts as a guardian angel to the family. When disaster looms following the arrival of an elderly stranger, the cricket appears in fairy form to save the day.

The lyrical ballad The Lady of Shalott is one of Tennyson's best-known and best-loved poems. It is based on the story of Elaine of Astolat, a figure from Arthurian legend, who dies from her unrequited love for Sir Lancelot. The subject matter provided inspiration for many of the Pre-Raphaelite painters. Tennyson published two versions of the poem, both of which are included in this recording. The first was written in 1832, and the second—the better-known of the two versions—in 1842.

With humor and pathos, Little Women follows the lives of four young women and their mother as they face the daily struggles of life. Set in Concord, Massachusetts, this is the story of four sisters who learn hard lessons of poverty and growing up in New England during the American Civil War. Each of the March sisters has a vision of what their ideal future will bring, though ultimately experiencing, as most young do, something completely different. The sisters are put to the test when their mother must leave them to attend to their father who is badly wounded in the war.

The First World War brought an abrupt end to Lanny Budd’s idyllic youth. Now, in the wake of the Treaty of Versailles, he barely recognizes the beloved Europe of his boyhood. At the start of his career as an international art dealer, Lanny travels to Italy and witnesses the brutal charisma of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Meanwhile, in Germany, the failed Beer Hall Putsch led by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party strikes an ominous note foreshadowing the devastation to come. 

Nikhil is a passive landowner. His houseguest is Sandip, a headstrong anti-imperialist. Between them is Nikhil’s wife, Bimala, dutiful to her conventional husband yet drawn to the fiery independence and bold flirtations of the charismatic Sandip. As Bimala questions her role as a woman and the possibilities for her life outside marriage, the three undergo an emotional struggle that will change their lives forever—just as their country undergoes a radical upheaval of its own. 

Just as the lovely Alvina Houghton comes of age, her widowed father’s business starts to dry up. In a drastic effort to regain his fortune and secure his daughter’s standing in society, James Houghton buys, of all things, a theater. Her father’s plans and dreams go misunderstood in the town, but the theater itself does quite well...for a time. One of the traveling players employed at the theater, a sensual Italian man named Ciccio, catches Alvina’s eye, and she finds herself intensely attracted to him.