Showing results by narrator "Jenny Agutter" in All Categories

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.

The story of a woman's struggle for independence from an abusive husband. Helen 'Graham' has returned to Wildfell Hall in flight from a disastrous marriage and to protect her young son from the influence of his father. Exiled to the desolate moorland mansion, she adopts an assumed name and earns her living as a painter. Gilbert Markham, a local man intrigued by the beautiful young 'widow' offers his friendship but becomes distrustful when her reclusive behaviour sparks rumours and speculation.

"I write this sitting at the kitchen sink" is the first line of a novel about love, sibling rivalry, and a bohemian existence in a crumbling castle in the middle of nowhere. Cassandra Mortmin's journal records her fadingly glamorous stepmother, her beautiful, wistful older sister, and the man to whom they owe both their isolation and poverty: Father. The author of one experimental novel, and a minor cause celebre, he has since suffered from writer's block and is determined to drag his family down with him.

Fleeing a disastrous marriage, Helen Huntingdon retreats to the desolate mansion, Wildfell Hall, with her son, Arthur. There, she makes her living as a painter. Finding it difficult to avoid her neighbors, she is soon an object of speculation and gossip. Brontë portrays Helen's eloquent struggle for independence at a time when society defined a married woman as her husband's property.

An anthology of over 50 classic poems, read by some of our finest actors. This collection contains a selection of the very best poems, from verses inspired by love to war poetry, nature poems and children's rhymes.

An anthology of over 60 classic love poems, read by some of our finest actors. Love has always been the supreme inspiration for poets, whether romantic or platonic, reciprocated or unrequited. This collection contains a range of the very best love poems, including Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress", Keats' "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" and Byron's "So We'll Go No More A-Roving" - as well as several sonnets from the master himself, William Shakespeare.

An anthology of over 60 classic poems of war and remembrance. The horrors of war have prompted countless soldiers and civilians to compose poetry, whether to denounce needless slaughter, celebrate courage or honour the dead. Beautifully read by Dean Lennox Kelly, Jenny Agutter, Michael Jayston, Rupert Holliday Evans and Samantha Bond, these timeless poems are poignant and powerful.

Edward Lear's much-loved comic poem, featuring the most elegant fowl in literature and his beautiful feline friend, read by Jenny Agutter.

A short section from Milton's epic poem, expressing how much sweeter the world is when you are with the one you love, read by Jenny Agutter.

The Thirteenth Tale is a compelling and emotional mystery, in the timeless vein of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, about family secrets and the magic of books and storytelling.

When Father is taken away unexpectedly, Roberta, Peter, Phyllis and their mother have to leave their comfortable life in London to go and live in a small cottage in the country. The children seek solace in the nearby railway station and make friends with Perks the Porter and the Station Master himself. Each day, Roberta, Peter and Phyllis run down the field to the railway track and wave at the passing London train, sending their love to Father. Little do they know that the kindly old gentleman passenger who waves back holds the key to their father's disappearance.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's classic poem recounting the astonishing variety of ways in which she loves her beloved, read by Jenny Agutter.

In the year 1629, a young English lutenist named Peter Claire arrives at the Danish Court to join King Christian IV's Royal Orchestra. From the moment when he realizes that the musicians perform in a freezing cellar underneath the royal apartments, Peter Clair understands that he's come to a place where the opposing states of light and dark, good and evil, are waging war to the death.

From a childhood of gothic proportions in a vicarage on the Welsh borders, through adolescence, leaving herself teetering on the brink of the 1960s, Lorna Sage vividly and wittily brings to life a vanished time and place and illuminates the lives of three generations of women.

It's 1943 and Lily Tregenza lives on a farm in the idyllic seaside village of Slapton. Apart from her father being away, and the "townie" evacuees at school, her life is scarcely touched by the war. Until one day, when Lily and her family, along with 3,000 other villagers, are told to move out of their homes: lock, stock, and barrel. Soon, the whole area is out of bounds, as the Allied forces practise their landings for D-day, preparing to invade France. But Tips, Lily's adored cat, has other ideas; barbed wire and keep-out signs mean nothing to her, nor does the danger of guns and bombs. Frantic to find her, Lily makes friends with two young American soldiers.

A beautiful extract from the famous biblical hymn to love, read by Jenny Agutter.

The Mitford family is one of the century's most enigmatic, made notorious by Nancy's novels, Diana's marriage to Sir Oswald Mosley, Unity's infatuation with Hitler, Debo's marriage to a duke and Jessica's passionate commitment to communism. Hons and Rebels is an enchanting and deeply absorbing memoir of an isolated and eccentric upbringing which conceals beneath its witty, lighthearted surface much wisdom and depth of feeling.

"A Birthday": Christina Rossetti's joyful celebration that her one true love has arrived, read by Jenny Agutter.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's plea to her lover to love her just for herself, and not for any qualities that may fade away, read by Jenny Agutter.

Two years ago, Fever Crumb escaped the war-torn city of London. Now she arrives in the extraordinary city of Mayda, where buildings ascend the cliffs on rails, and a mysterious recluse is building a machine that can fly. Fever is the engineer he needs - but ruthless enemies will kill to possess their secrets.