Audiobooks by William Trevor

The Old Boys & other stories: Eleven Full-Cast BBC Radio Dramatisations

"A collection of some of William Trevor’s most acclaimed works, as heard on BBC Radio William Trevor was an Irish literary legend. In a 40-year career, he published a multiplicity of novels, plays, and short stories, and received numerous awards and honours. He was often compared to Chekhov for his extraordinary insight into the human condition, and in these eleven tales, he delves into the inner lives of ordinary people, with all their passions, secrets, fears and disappointments. We open this collection with two dramatisations taken from the BBC tribute programme I Am a Storyteller: William Trevor at 80, interspersed with excerpts from John Tusa’s 2005 interview with Trevor. Beyond the Pale, which garnered the author his first Giles Cooper Award, centres around four English tourists in Ireland whose complacency is shattered by an encounter with a troubled stranger. The Penthouse Apartment sees a shy spinster’s quiet life violently disrupted when she visits her neighbours’ opulent home. The Hill Bachelors tells the poignant tale of a young man caught between desire and circumstance. Sacred Statues sees a sculptor’s wife hatching a shocking plan to save the family from penury... My House in Umbria focuses on a romantic novelist who finds new purpose caring for three survivors of a train bomb. Autumn Sunshine, the winner of Trevor’s second Giles Cooper Award, concerns a recently bereaved canon, his estranged daughter and her objectionable boyfriend. Set in 1847, The News From Ireland revolves around an unhappy young governess, newly arrived at the Pulvertafts’ Irish estate. Adapted from Trevor’s Hawthornden Prize-winning 1964 comic novel, The Old Boys finds schoolboy rivalries resurfacing when the septuagenarian members of an alumni association convene to elect a new chair. A woman is haunted by visions of her potential replacement in The Mark 2 Wife. In dark comedy The Boarding House, a group of misfits mourn the loss of their landlord. An old Irish schoolteacher re-assesses her life in Attracta. Blending comedy, tragedy and pathos, these absorbing dramas feature a host of seasoned performers including Prunella Scales, Frances Jeater, Maurice Denham, Mary Wimbush, Cecil Parker, Cyril Cusack, Derek Waring and Eileen Walsh. Text copyright © 1964 (The Old Boys), 1965 (The Boarding House), 1967 (The Penthouse Apartment), 1968 (The Mark 2 Wife), 1977 (Attracta), 1980 (Beyond the Pale), 1982 (Autumn Sunshine), 1986 (The News from Ireland), 1991 (My House in Umbria), 2000 (The Hill Bachelors), 2002 (Sacred Statues) © 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd"

William Trevor (Author), Cecil Parker, Cyril Cusack, Derek Waring, Eileen Walsh, Frances Jeater, Full Cast, Mary Wimbush, Maurice Denham, Prunella Scales (Narrator)

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Going Home & other plays: Eight Full-Cast BBC Radio Productions

"A collection of original radio dramas by the much-loved Irish literary legend One of Ireland’s greatest contemporary authors, William Trevor won the Whitbread Prize three times, and was shortlisted four times for the Man Booker Prize. He received an honorary CBE in 1977 for his services to literature, was made a Companion of Literature in 1994 and in 2002, and received an honorary knighthood. These eight radio plays display all his hallmarks: his keen observation of human life, his mastery of dialogue and his distinctive voice. In Mr McNamara, which won the 1993 Writers’ Guild Award for Best Original Play, there’s a shock in store for 16-year-old Michael when he visits his dead father’s friend in Dublin… Travellers finds widowed Mrs Daveridge on holiday in Venice with her son – but she is troubled by memories and doubts. The residents of a remote Irish village are obliged to re-examine a tragedy in Events at Drimaghleen. In Running Away, a wife has a conversation with her husband that changes her world. The Blue Dress focuses on a middle-aged journalist obsessed with the truth who cannot stop asking questions – even when he falls in love. Scenes from an Album explores the sweep of Irish history through a seventeenth-century landowner and his 20th-century descendants. In Going Home, a boy and a lonely woman return from boarding school for the final time. In A Perfect Relationship, Mr Hambro and ‘business girl’ Sylvia have had a regular arrangement for 11 years: but how much longer can it last? Featuring Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis in one of his earliest roles (in Travellers), the ensemble casts of these stunning dramas include Maurice Denham, Sylvia Coleridge, Malcolm Hayes, Elizabeth Proud, Nigel Anthony, TP McKenna, Sarah Badel and Kate Binchy. Text copyright © 1970 (Going Home), 1973 (A Perfect Relationship), 1975 (Scenes from an Album), 1982 (Travellers), 1985 (The Blue Dress), 1988 (Running Away, Events at Drimaghleen), 1994 (Mr McNamara) © 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd"

William Trevor (Author), Daniel Day-Lewis, Elizabeth Proud, Full Cast, Kate Binchy, Malcolm Hayes, Maurice Denham, Nigel Anthony, Sarah Badel, Sylvia Coleridge, TP McKenna (Narrator)

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Last Stories

"Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Last Stories by William Trevor, read by Niamh Cusack, Stephen Hogan and Tara Fitzgerald. In this final collection of ten exquisite, perceptive and profound stories, William Trevor probes into the depths of the human spirit. Here we encounter a tutor and his pupil, whose lives are thrown into turmoil when they meet again years later; a young girl who discovers the mother she believed dead is alive and well; and a piano-teacher who accepts her pupil's theft in exchange for his beautiful music. These gorgeous stories - the last that Trevor wrote before his death - affirm his place as one of the world's greatest storytellers. 'What a writer he was; he could flip over a sentence so gently, and show the underbelly in a heartbeat. His work is always quietly compassionate' Elizabeth Strout 'Trevor is a master of both language and storytelling' Hilary Mantel 'He is one of the great short-story writers, at his best the equal of Chekhov' John Banville"

William Trevor (Author), Niamh Cusack, Stephen Hogan, Tara Fitzgerald (Narrator)

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