Lewis Raycie is sent on a Grand Tour of Europe with instructions from his father to acquire a collection of accepted Art Works. His father's dream is to own a Raphael; instead, Lewis returns with a priceless collection of Renaissance masterpieces by Piero della Francesca and others of equal stature. They are, however, unknown in America. His father is appalled and disinherits him. His family ridicule him. But it is only after Lewis dies that the magnificent collection gets the recognition it really deserves.

From New York to Europe, the apartments of the nouveau riche to ancient French estates, Edith Wharton tells the story of Undine Spragg, a girl from a Midwestern town with unquenchable social aspirations. Though Undine is narcissistic, pampered, and incredibly selfish, she is a beguiling heroine whose marital initiation into New York high society from its trade-wealthy fringes is only the beginning of her relentless ambitions.

Madame de Treymes follows the fortunes of two innocents abroad: Fanny Frisbee of New York, unhappily married to the dissolute Marquis de Malrive, scion of a great house of the Faubourg St. Germain, and John Durham, her childhood friend, who arrives in Paris intent on persuading Fanny to divorce her husband and marry him instead.

A challenge to the moral climate of the day, The Reef follows the fancies of George Darrow, a young diplomat en route from London to France, intent on proposing to the widowed Anna Leath. Unsettled by Anna's reticence, Darrow drifts into an affair with Sophy Viner, a charmingly naive and impecunious young woman whose relations with Darrow and Anna's family threaten his prospects for success.

Each story in The Rendezvous and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier explores a different human emotion. Narrated by Edward de Souza, this Audible Exclusive has something that will appeal to any mood....

A BBC radio collection of full-cast dramatisations, bringing together Edith Wharton’s most popular and best-loved works. 

Countess Ellen Olenska, separated from her European husband, returns to old New York society. She bears with her an independence and an awareness of life which stirs the educated sensitivity of the charming Newland Archer, engaged to be married to her cousin, May Welland. Though he accepts the society's standards and rules he is acutely aware of their limitations. He knows May will assure him a conventional future but Ellen, scandalously separated from her husband, forces Archer to question his values and beliefs.

Beautiful, sophisticated and endlessly ambitious Lily Bart endeavours to climb the social ladder of New York's elite by securing a good match and living beyond her means. Now nearing 30 years of age and having rejected several proposals, forever in the hope of finding someone better, her future prospects are threatened. A damning commentary of 20th-century social order, Edith Wharton's tale established her as one of the greatest British novelists of the 1900s.

Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic encompasses a four-volume panorama of twentieth century London. Hailed by Time as "brilliant literary comedy as well as a brilliant sketch of the times," A Dance to the Music of Time opens just after World War I. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, Nick Jenkins and his friends confront sex, society, business, and art.

Hugh Walpole (1884-1941) was one of the most popular and prolific English authors of his time, best known for his historical fiction and novels for boys. But it was in the field of the macabre and supernatural that Walpole was at his best, and this collection of 16 tales contains many of his finest.

This is a diverting delight, a window on romance in literature. There are high lovers and low lovers, tragic lovers, comic lovers, and lovers who shouldn’t be doing what they are doing at all and certainly not then and there. There is even Fanny Hill trying not to discover what physical love is about when set upon by an old roué who has paid for the privilege. Though of special interest for lovers and their special lover’s day of St. Valentine, it is an amusing and sometimes surprising collection.

Soon to be a major TV series starring Kenneth Branagh. On 21 June 1922, Count Alexander Rostov - recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt - is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. But instead of his usual suite, he must now live in an attic room while Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval. Can a life without luxury be the richest of all?

After being treated for epilepsy at a Swiss sanatorium, Prince Muishkin returns to St. Petersburg to reconnect with a wealthy distant relative and her family. Guileless and charming, Muishkin endears himself to everyone he meets, and they place him in the center of high society’s conflicts. Soon Muishkin becomes caught in a sphere of jealousy, betrayal, extortion, and murder. And he finds his loyalties divided between two women - one needing love, the other salvation.

In a comprehensive and beautifully crafted first person narrative, David Copperfield recalls key stages, memories, and incidents of his life from infancy to maturity. Scenes, adventures, and characters are summoned to the narrator's remembrance so vividly that they are rendered with the vitality of the present moment.

The story chronicles the class movement of the time and gives us a remarkable description of social, political and industrial change. Set in Gloucestershire in the heart of England and told by Phineas, his soul mate and lifelong friend, who observes John through all his glorious moments, self-doubt and resolution, the story is simple, uplifting and heroic. It is a detailed study of a man and his family that also presents the listener with a broad view of Britain during one of its most troubled times.