Audiobooks by Charles Kingsley

50+ Masterpieces you have to read before you die. Christmas Stories and Poems: A Christmas Carol, A

"Anthology of Christmas Stories is a unique collection of Christmas tales, reflections, and poems from beloved authors across the centuries and makes the perfect gift for the reader in your life. This beautiful treasury will take you back to firesides, simple gifts, and warm family moments of Christmases past as you cherish the timeless truths and joys of the season. Contents: Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol The Chimes G.K. Chesterton A Christmas Carol L.M. Montgomery The Red Room A Christmas Mistake A Christmas Inspiration The Josephs' Christmas Aunt Cyrilla's Christmas Basket The Osbornes' Christmas Bertie's New Year Ida's New Year Cake The Christmas Surprise at Enderly Road Clorinda's Gifts The Falsoms' Christmas Dinner The Unforgotten One Christmas at Red Butte Uncle Richard's New Year's Dinner L. Frank Baum A Kidnapped Santa Claus Little Bun Rabbit Mark Twain A Letter from Santa Claus Louisa May Alcott A Merry Christmas Leo Tolstoy A Russian Christmas Party Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Christmas Bells The Three Kings Nikolai Gogol Christmas Eve William Dean Howells Christmas Everyday The Pony Engine and the Pacific Express Joseph Rudyard Kipling Christmas in India Elizabeth Harrison Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe John Milton On the Morning of Christ's Nativity Hans Christian Andersen The Fir Tree The Little Match Girl Selma Lagerlof The Holy Night Clement Moore The Night Before Christmas Henry van Dyke The Other Wise Man Beatrix Potter The Tailor of Gloucester Anton Chehov Vanka O. Henry The Gift of the Magi Hesba Stretton The Christmas Child Kenneth Grahame The Wind in the Willows Robert Louis Stevenson Christmas at Sea Walter Scott Christmas In The Olden Time Alfred Tennyson Ring out, wild bells Abbie Farwell Brown The Christmas Angel Anthony Trollope Christmas at Thompson Hall Thomas Hardy The Oxen William Butler Yeats The Magi William Makepeace Thackeray The Mahogany Tree Charles Kingsley Christmas Day Ella Wheeler Wilcox Christmas Fancies C. W. Stubbs Twas Jolly, Jolly Wat Eugene Field Jest 'Fore Christmas Paul Laurence Dunbar A Christmas Folksong William Topaz McGonagall A Tale of Christmas Eve Emily Dickinson The Savior must have been a docile Gentleman"

Alfred Tennyson, Anton Chekhov, Beatrix Potter, C. W. Stubbs, Charles Dickens, Charles Kingsley, Clement C. Moore, Elizabeth Harrison, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Emily Dickinson, Eugene Field, G.K. Chesterton, Hans Christian Andersen, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry van Dyke, Hesba Stretton, John Milton, Joseph Rudyard Kipling, Kenneth Grahame, L. Frank Baum, L.M. Montgomery, Leo Tolstoy, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Nikolai Gogol, O. Henry, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Robert Louis Stevenson, Selma Lagerlof, Thomas Hardy, Walter Scott, William Butler Yeats, William Dean Howells, William Thackeray, William Topaz McGonagall (Author), Chris Dabbs, Jim Girard, Peter Coates, Trevor O'Hare (Narrator)

Audiobook

Born in England – Exploring English Poetry - The South-West

"Poetry. A form of words that seems so elegantly simple in one verse and so cleverly complex in another. Each poet has a particular style, an individual and unique way with words and yet each of us seems to recognise the path and destination of where the verses lead, even if sometimes the full comprehension may be a little beyond us.Through the centuries every culture has produced verse to symbolize and to describe everything from everyday life, natural wonders, the human condition and even in its more hubristic moments, the crushing triumph of an enemy.In the volumes of this series, we take a look at poetry through the prism of individual regions of England, or sometimes more quaintly known as ‘Albion’, or ‘Blighty’, through the centuries of its gloried history.England, despite its perception of reserve and under-statement has, in reality, strode the global stage at various time in many things, both good and bad, from Empire to long distance running. Here our focus in on its literature. Famed for its fiction and dramas, it is equally admired for its plethora of gifted poets and the dazzling verse which has added so much to its artistic legacy. These classic poets are wonders of their age and of their art. Genius is written in their names.This long limb of England pushes into the Atlantic yet from its ancient past until today its creative contribution is woven in gloried threads into the culture of the whole Nation."

Charles Kingsley, Henry Alford, Isaac Rosenberg, Ivor Gurney, John Keble, Joseph Addison, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Southey, Samuel Daniel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas Chatterton, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Lovell Beddoes (Author), Ghizela Rowe, Jo Wyatt, Richard Mitchley (Narrator)

Audiobook

Born in England – Exploring English Poetry - Cambridge University

"Poetry. A form of words that seems so elegantly simple in one verse and so cleverly complex in another. Each poet has a particular style, an individual and unique way with words and yet each of us seems to recognise the path and destination of where the verses lead, even if sometimes the full comprehension may be a little beyond us.Through the centuries every culture has produced verse to symbolize and to describe everything from everyday life, natural wonders, the human condition and even in its more hubristic moments, the crushing triumph of an enemy.In the volumes of this series, we take a look at poetry through the prism of individual regions of England, or sometimes more quaintly known as ‘Albion’, or ‘Blighty’, through the centuries of its gloried history.England, despite its perception of reserve and under-statement has, in reality, strode the global stage at various time in many things, both good and bad, from Empire to long distance running. Here our focus in on its literature. Famed for its fiction and dramas, it is equally admired for its plethora of gifted poets and the dazzling verse which has added so much to its artistic legacy. These classic poets are wonders of their age and of their art. Genius is written in their names.In this volume we explore the poets of Cambridge. A small city, with its famed university, with an enviable historical grandeur and roll-call of poets who dazzle, humble and inspire us all in ways that only a poet can. Our poets include Christopher Marlowe, Lord Byron, Rupert Brooke, Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Donne and the talents of very many others."

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Andrew Marvell, Charles Kingsley, Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, John Donne, John Dryden, Lord Byron, Robert Herrick, Rupert Brooke, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Siegfried Sassoon, Sir Walter Raleigh, William Wordsworth (Author), Ghizela Rowe, Richard Mitchley, Sean Barrett (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Water Babies

"Charles Kingsley's 'The Water-Babies' stands as a timeless masterpiece that has captured the hearts and imaginations of readers since its first publication in 1863. A remarkable Victorian clergyman, author, and social reformer, Kingsley wove together a captivating narrative that transcends its era, providing readers with a delightful blend of fantasy, morality, and social commentary. Set against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution, 'The Water-Babies' reflects the societal concerns and moral dilemmas of Kingsley's time. In this enchanting tale, we follow the journey of Tom, a chimney sweep's apprentice who undergoes a miraculous transformation into a water-baby after a series of trials and adventures. As Tom explores the aquatic world, encountering an array of whimsical characters and undergoing moral lessons, Kingsley invites readers to reflect on their own lives and the world around them. One of the novel's unique features is its dual nature as both a charming fairy tale and a vehicle for social critique. Kingsley uses the fantastical underwater realm to address issues of child labour, environmental degradation, and the moral conduct of society. Through humour, wit, and imaginative storytelling, he imparts valuable lessons about compassion, responsibility, and personal growth. 'The Water-Babies' remains relevant today as it resonates with universal themes and moral insights that extend beyond the Victorian context. The narrative's enduring appeal lies not only in its engaging storyline but also in the profound messages that it conveys about human nature and societal values. Head Stories Audio presents ' The Water Babies' by Charles Kingsley - narrated by Simon Hester. With original music."

Charles Kingsley (Author), Simon Hester (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Big Book of Christmas. Classic Stories and Poems (100 works): The Gift of the Magi, The Red Room

"'The Big Book of Christmas: Classic Stories and Poems' is a grand compilation that assembles a treasure trove of holiday tales and poems from a remarkable array of authors. This extensive collection includes 100 classic works, each thoughtfully illustrated, to immerse readers in the magic and wonder of the Christmas season. This anthology spans a rich tapestry of Christmas literature, including timeless favorites such as 'The Gift of the Magi,' 'The Red Room,' 'A Letter from Santa Claus,' 'The Fir Tree,' 'Song of the Holly,' and many more. These stories and poems capture the spirit of Christmas through diverse voices, styles, and settings, offering readers a diverse and enriching experience. Contents: Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol The Chimes G.K. Chesterton A Christmas Carol L.M. Montgomery The Red Room A Christmas Mistake A Christmas Inspiration The Josephs' Christmas Aunt Cyrilla's Christmas Basket The Osbornes' Christmas Bertie's New Year Ida's New Year Cake The Christmas Surprise at Enderly Road Clorinda's Gifts The Falsoms' Christmas Dinner The Unforgotten One Christmas at Red Butte Uncle Richard's New Year's Dinner L. Frank Baum A Kidnapped Santa Claus Little Bun Rabbit The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus Mark Twain A Letter from Santa Claus Louisa May Alcott A Country Christmas Cousin Tribulation's Story What the Bell Saw and Said Tilly's Christmas Tessa's Surprises Kate's Choice The Boys' Joke, And Who Got The Best Of It The Quiet Little Woman Rosa's Tale A Christmas Dream and How It Came True A Christmas Turkey, And How It Came A Merry Christmas Leo Tolstoy A Russian Christmas Party Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Christmas Bells The Three Kings Nikolai Gogol Christmas Eve William Dean Howells Christmas Everyday The Pony Engine and the Pacific Express Joseph Rudyard Kipling Christmas in India Elizabeth Harrison Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe John Milton On the Morning of Christ's Nativity Hans Christian Andersen The Fir Tree The Little Match Girl Selma Lagerlof A Christmas Guest The Holy Night The Legend of the Christmas Rose Clement Moore The Night Before Christmas Henry van Dyke The Other Wise Man Beatrix Potter The Tailor of Gloucester Anton Chehov Vanka O. Henry The Gift of the Magi Christmas by Injunction Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking A Chaparral Christmas Gift An Unfinished Christmas Story Hesba Stretton The Christmas Child Kenneth Grahame The Wind in the Willows Robert Louis Stevenson Christmas at Sea Markheim Winter Time Walter Scott Christmas In The Olden Time Alfred Tennyson Ring out, wild bells Thomas Hardy The Oxen William Butler Yeats The Magi William Makepeace Thackeray The Mahogany Tree Charles Kingsley Christmas Day Eugene Field Jest 'Fore Christmas Emily Dickinson The Savior must have been a docile Gentleman Willa Cather The Burglar's Christmas Arthur Conan Doyle The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle Fyodor Dostoyevsky A Christmas Tree and a Wedding Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The Christmas-Box Washington Irving Christmas The Stage-Coach Christmas Eve Christmas Day The Christmas Dinner George MacDonald Christmas Day and Everyday The Christmas Child Christmas Meditation A Christmas Prayer A Christmas Carol My Uncle Peter Mary's Lullaby Christmas-Day The Gifts of the Child Christ That Holy Thing Christmas Christmas Song of the Old Children King Cole A Song for Christmas James Joyce The Dead Saki Bertie's Christmas Eve William Shakespeare Song of the Holly The Gracious Time Harriet Beecher Stowe Christmas; or, The Good Fairy The First Christmas of New England Betty's Bright Idea Christmas in Poganuc Oscar Wilde The Selfish Giant"

Alfred Tennyson, Anton Chekhov, Beatrix Potter, Charles Dickens, Charles Kingsley, Clement C. Moore, Elizabeth Harrison, Emily Dickinson, Eugene Field, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, George MacDonald, Hans Christian Andersen, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry van Dyke, Hesba Stretton, James Joyce, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, John Milton, Joseph Rudyard Kipling, Kenneth Grahame, L. Frank Baum, L.M. Montgomery, Leo Tolstoy, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Nikolai Gogol, O.Henry, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Saki, Selma Lagerlof, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, Walter Scott, Washington Irving, Willa Cather, William Butler Yeats, William Dean Howells, William Shakespeare, William Thackeray (Author), Abigail Reno, Chris Dabbs, Jim Girard, Joe Phoenix, Mark Bowen, Peter Coates, Trevor O'hare (Narrator)

Audiobook

Sea Stories (Unabridged)

"SEA STORIES, tells the entire tale. You will find excerpts of some of the most famous nautical stories of all time. Most of us have passed through a period of life during which we have ardently longed to be, if not actually a rover, a buccaneer, or a pirate, at least and really a sailor! To run away to sea has been the misdirected ambition of many a youngster, and some lads there are who have realized their desire to their sorrow. The boy who has not cherished in his heart and exhibited in his actions at sometime or other during his youthful days, a love of ships and salt water, is fit for-well, he is fit for the shore, and that is the worst thing a sailor could say about him! The virile nations, the strong peoples, are those whose countries border on the sea. They who go down to the great deep in ships are they who master the world. On the ocean as well as on the mountain top dwells the spirit of freedom. When men have struggled with each other in the shock of war, or the emulation of peace, when they have matched skill against skill, strength to strength, courage with courage, the higher quality of manhood in each instance has been required upon the sea; for there the sharp contention has been not only between man and man but between nature and man as well. A double portion of heroic spirit is needed to meet the double demand. That is the reason we love the sea. It is this Homeric spirit of the Ocean Masters that fills the dreams of youth and stirs the memories of old age. In these dreams and memories the veriest boy catches glimpses of the perpetual Titanic struggle of, and on, the deep; dimly discerning in his youthful way, a thousand generations of heroic achievement before, and through which, he begins to be; and he realizes that the ocean affords such a field for the exhibition of every high quality that goes to make a man as may be found nowhere else."

Charles Dickens, Charles Kingsley, Charles Reade, Cyrus Townsend Brady, Daniel Defoe, Frank Thomas Bullen, Frederick Marryat, George Cupples, Herman Melville, James Fenimore Cooper, Jean Ingelow, Jean Rudolf Wyss, Michael Scott, Pierre Loti, R. J. Cleveland, Richard Henry Dana Jr., Robert Louis Stevenson, Victor Hugo, W.H.G. Kingston, William Clark Russell (Author), Ant Richards (Narrator)

Audiobook

In the Gulf Stream (Unabridged)

"Charles Kingsley (12 June 1819 - 23 January 1875) was a broad church priest of the Church of England, a university professor, social reformer, historian, novelist and poet. He is particularly associated with Christian socialism, the working men's college, and forming labour cooperatives, which failed, but encouraged later working reforms. He was a friend and correspondent of Charles Darwin. IN THE GULF STREAM: The appearance of the first fragments of gulf-weed caused quite a little excitement, and set an enthusiastic pair of naturalists, a midland hunting squire, and a travelled scientific doctor who had been twelve years in the Eastern Archipelago, fishing eagerly over the bows, with an extemporized grapple of wire, for gulf-weed, a specimen of which they did not catch."

Charles Kingsley (Author), Ant Richards (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Water-Babies

"Tom, a poor orphan, is employed by the villainous chimney-sweep, Grimes, to climb up inside flues to clear away the soot. While engaged in this dreadful task, he loses his way and emerges in the bedroom of Ellie, the young daughter of the house who mistakes him for a thief. He runs away, and, hot and bothered, he slips into a cooling stream, falls fast asleep, and becomes a water baby. In this new life, he meets all sorts of aquatic creatures, including an engaging old lobster, other water babies, and at last reaches St Branden's Isle where he encounters the fierce Mrs Bedonbyasyoudid and the motherly Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby. After a long and arduous quest to the Other-end-of-Nowhere young Tom achieves his heart's desire."

Charles Kingsley (Author), Cori Samuel (Narrator)

Audiobook

At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies (Unabridged)

"At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies: To whom should I dedicate this book, but to you, to whom I owe my visit to the West Indies? I regret that I could not consult you about certain matters in Chapters XIV and XV; but you are away again over sea; and I can only send the book after you, such as it is, with the expression of my hearty belief that you will be to the people of Mauritius what you have been to the people of Trinidad."

Charles Kingsley (Author), Peter Walters (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Water-Babies, a Fairy Tale for a Land Baby (Unabridged)

"The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby is a children's novel by Charles Kingsley. Written in 1862-63 as a serial for Macmillan's Magazine, it was first published in its entirety in 1863. It was written as part satire in support of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species. The book was extremely popular in England, and was a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades, but eventually fell out of favour in part due to its prejudices (common at the time) against Irish, Jews, Catholics and Americans. The protagonist is Tom, a young chimney sweep, who falls into a river after encountering an upper-class girl named Ellie and being chased out of her house. There he appears to drown and is transformed into a 'water-baby', as he is told by a caddisfly - an insect that sheds its skin-and begins his moral education. The story is thematically concerned with Christian redemption, though Kingsley also uses the book to argue that England treats its poor badly, and to question child labour, among other themes."

Charles Kingsley (Author), Cheryl Bassett (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Water Babies

"Timothy West, Julia McKenzie and Oliver Peace star in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Charles Kingsley’s classic tale of a chimney sweep who becomes a water baby. Forced up the chimneys of Hartover Hall by his cruel master, Grimes, young Tom gets lost and comes down the wrong one, frightening little Miss Ellie. In the chase that follows, he is rescued by the fairies and taken to be a water baby under the waves. There, he makes friends with sea creatures such as the Lobster and meets the beautiful, kind fairy Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby and her ugly, unpleasant sister Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid. When he is introduced to the other Water Babies, he is reunited with Ellie, who has also been transformed. With her support, he sets off on a quest to the Other-End-Of-Nowhere. But first he must find Mother Carey’s peace pool – and help out the last person he wants to save: his former master... Oliver Peace stars as Tom, with Timothy West as Charles Kingsley and Julia McKenzie as Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby and Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid. Dramatised by Berlie Doherty. The wonder and excitement of much-loved children’s classics lives on in BBC Radio’s acclaimed full-cast dramatisations, complete with evocative music and sound effects."

Charles Kingsley (Author), Full Cast, Julia Mckenzie, Oliver Peace, Timothy West (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Heroes, or Greek Fairy Tales for my Children

"The Heroes, or Greek Fairy Tales for my Children by Charles Kingsley is a collection of three Greek mythology stories: Perseus, The Argonauts, and Theseus. The author had a great fondness for Greek fairy tales and believed the adventures of the characters would inspire children to achieve higher goals with integrity."

Charles Kingsley (Author), LibriVox Volunteers (Narrator)

Audiobook