"Penguin Classics presents Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, adapted for audio and now available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by the actress Julie Christie.
Hardy's powerful novel of swift sexual passion and slow-burning loyalty centres on Bathsheba Everdene, a proud working woman whose life is complicated by three different men - respectable farmer Boldwood, seductive Sergeant Troy and devoted Gabriel - making her the object of scandal and betrayal.
Vividly portraying the superstitions and traditions of a small rural community, Far from the Madding Crowd shows the precarious position of a woman in a man's world.
Part of a series of vintage recordings taken from the Penguin Archives. Affordable, collectable, quality productions - perfect for on-the-go listening."
"Penguin Classics presents Jane Austen's Persuasion, adapted for audio and available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by the actress Geraldine McEwan.
'Her attachment and regrets had, for a long time, clouded every enjoyment of youth; and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been their lasting effect'
Persuasion, Jane Austen's last novel, is a moving, masterly and elegiac love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities.
It tells the story of Anne Elliot, who, persuaded to break off her engagement to the man she loved because he was not successful enough, has never forgotten him. When he returns, he brings with him a tantalising second chance of happiness ...
Part of a series of vintage recordings taken from the Penguin Archives. Affordable, collectable, quality productions - perfect for on-the-go listening."
"Penguin Classics presents Bram Stoker's Dracula, adapted for audio and available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by the actor Richard E. Grant.
'Alone with the dead! I dare not go out, for I can hear the low howl of the wolf through the broken window'
A chilling masterpiece of the horror genre, Dracula also illuminated dark corners of Victorian sexuality. When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to advise Count Dracula on a London home, he makes a horrifying discovery. Soon afterwards, a number of disturbing incidents unfold in England: an unmanned ship is wrecked at Whitby; strange puncture marks appear on a young woman's neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the arrival of his 'Master', while a determined group of adversaries prepares to face the terrifying Count.
Part of a series of vintage recordings taken from the Penguin Archives. Affordable, collectable, quality productions - perfect for on-the-go listening."
"Penguin Classics presents Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, adapted for audio and available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by the actor William Hootkins.
'The frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in twain...'
Moby-Dick is one of the most expansive feats of imagination in the whole of literature: the mad, raging, Shakespearean tale of Captain Ahab's insane quest to kill a giant white whale that has taken his leg, and upon which he has sworn vengeance, at any cost. A creation unlike any other, this is an epic story of fatal monomania and the deepest dreams and obsessions of mankind.
Part of a series of vintage recordings taken from the Penguin Archives. Affordable, collectable, quality productions - perfect for on-the-go listening."
"Penguin Classics presents George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss, adapted for audio and now available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by the actress Irene Sutcliffe.
If life had no love in it, what else was there for Maggie?
Tragic and moving, The Mill on the Floss is a novel of grand passions and tormented lives. As the rebellious Maggie's fiery spirit and imaginative nature bring her into bitter conflict with her narrow provincial family, most painfully with her beloved brother Tom, their fates are played out on an epic scale. George Eliot drew on her own frustrated rural upbringing to create one of the great novels of childhood, and one of literature's most unforgettable heroines.
Part of a series of vintage recordings taken from the Penguin Archives. Affordable, collectable, quality productions - perfect for on-the-go listening."
"Penguin Classics presents Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, adapted for audio and now available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by the actress Diana Quick.
'How am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen today?'
Elizabeth Gaskell's compassionate, richly dramatic novel features one of the most original and fully-rounded female characters in Victorian fiction, Margaret Hale. It shows how, forced to move from the country to an industrial northern town, she develops a passionate sense of social justice, and a turbulent relationship with mill-owner John Thornton. North and South depicts a young woman discovering herself, in a nuanced portrayal of what divides people, and what brings them together.
Part of a series of vintage recordings taken from the Penguin Archives. Affordable, collectable, quality productions - perfect for on-the-go listening."
"Penguin Classics presents Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, adapted for audio and now available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by the actor Kerry Shale.
'I'm unfavorable to killin' a man as long as you can git around it; it ain't good sense, it ain't good morals. Ain't I right?'
The original Great American Novel, an incomparable adventure story and a classic of anarchic humour, Twain's masterpiece sees Huckleberry Finn and Jim the slave escape their difficult lives by fleeing down the Mississippi on a raft. There, they find steamships, feuding families, an unlikely Duke and King and vital lessons about the world in which they live. With its unforgettable cast of characters, Hemingway called this 'the best book we've ever had'.
Part of a series of vintage recordings taken from the Penguin Archives. Affordable, collectable, quality productions - perfect for on-the-go listening."
"Written in 1896, The Island of Dr. Moreau was an instant sensation that went on to inspire a series of movies. It was meant as a commentary on Darwin's recently published theory of evolution, which had riveted the world of science and therefore, of science fiction. While gene-splicing and bioengineering are common practices today, readers are still amazed by Wells's haunting vision and the ethical questions he raised a century before our time.
Shipwrecked on a Pacific island, gentleman naturalist Edward Prendick finds Dr. Moreau, a scientist expelled from his homeland for performing cruel vivisection experiments. Here Moreau has found the freedom to continue his work, and Prendick soon becomes involved. Dr. Moreau's project is to "humanize" animals by torturous surgical transplant, creating hideous creatures with manlike intelligence. But as the cruelly-enforced order on Moreau's island dissolves, the true consequences of his meddling emerge."
"Mark Renton has it all: he's good-looking, young, with a pretty girlfriend and a place at university. But there's no room for him in the 1980s. Thatcher's government is destroying working-class communities across Britain, and the post-war certainties of full employment, educational opportunity and a welfare state are gone. When his family starts to fracture, Mark's life swings out of control and he succumbs to the defeatism which has taken hold in Edinburgh's grimmer areas. The way out is heroin.
It's no better for his friends. Spud Murphy is paid off from his job, Tommy Lawrence feels himself being sucked into a life of petty crime and violence - the worlds of the thieving Matty Connell and psychotic Franco Begbie. Only Sick Boy, the supreme manipulator of the opposite sex, seems to ride the current, scamming and hustling his way through it all.
Skagboys charts their journey from likely lads to young men addicted to the heroin which has flooded their disintegrating community. This is the 1980s: a time of drugs, poverty, AIDS, violence, political strife and hatred - but a lot of laughs, and maybe just a little love; a decade which changed Britain for ever. The prequel to the world-renowned Trainspotting, this is an exhilarating and moving book, full of the scabrous humour, salty vernacular and appalling behaviour that has made Irvine Welsh a household name."
"When Dorothy came back from the dead, Aaron noticed that some people simply ignored the fact; some seemed to have forgotten she had died in the first place; and others just walked straight on by.
The accident that killed Dorothy -- involving an oak tree, a sun porch and some elusive biscuits -- leaves Aaron bereft and the house a wreck. As those around him fuss and flap and bring him casserole after casserole, Aaron ploughs on. He busies himself with work at the family firm, a publisher with a successful line in 'Beginner's Guides' to every stage and aspect of life. But then Dorothy starts to materialize in the oddest places. At first, she only comes for a short while, leaving Aaron longing for more. Gradually she stays for longer, and as they talk they also bicker ...
The cracks that start to reappear in their perfectly normal marriage are as well worn and familiar to Aaron as Dorothy herself. As Aaron starts to emerge from his grief, they are also a reassuringly poignant reminder that life may move on, but some things will forever remain the same."
"Winesburg, Ohio is a little-known masterpiece that forever changed the course of American storytelling. Bittersweet and richly insightful, it reveals Sherwood Anderson's special talent for taking the small moments of life and transforming them into timeless folk tales-a talent that inspired a generation of writers including William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and John Steinbeck. At the center of this collection of stories stands George Willard, an earnest young reporter for the Winesburg Eagle who sets out to gather the town's daily news. He ends up discovering the town's deepest secrets as one by one, the townsfolk confide their hopes, dreams, and fears to the reporter. In their recollections of first loves and last rites, of sprawling farms and winding country roads, the town rises vividly-and poignantly-to life. With polished prose and fresh imagery, Winesburg, Ohio is an American classic that celebrates small town life in the lost days of innocence and good will."
"This anthology is a thorough introduction to classic literature for those who have not yet experienced these literary masterworks. For those who have known and loved these works in the past, this is an invitation to reunite with old friends in a fresh new format. From Shakespeare's finesse to Oscar Wilde's wit, this unique collection brings together works as diverse and influential as The Pilgrim's Progress and Othello. As an anthology that invites readers to immerse themselves in the masterpieces of the literary giants, it is must-have addition to any library. Five dozen selected sonnets from the 154 sonnets Shakespeare wrote, including Numbers 18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?); 29 (When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes); 95 (The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge); 116 (Let me not to the marriage of true minds); 129 (The expense of spirit in a waste of shame); 130 (My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun)"
