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Audiobooks Narrated by Cynthia Franklin
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"Sherlock Holmes - The Novels includes the 4 full-length novels featuring Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional private detective created by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a 'consulting detective' in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, forensic science, and logical reasoning that borders on the fantastic, which he employs when investigating cases for a wide variety of clients, including Scotland Yard. First appearing in print in 1887's A Study in Scarlet, the character's popularity became widespread with the first series of short stories in The Strand Magazine, beginning with A Scandal in Bohemia in 1891; additional tales appeared from then until 1927, eventually totalling four novels and 56 short stories. All but one are set in the Victorian or Edwardian eras, between about 1880 and 1914. Most are narrated by the character of Holmes's friend and biographer Dr. Watson, who usually accompanies Holmes during his investigations and often shares quarters with him at the address of 221B Baker Street, London, where many of the stories begin.
Included in this collection:
1. A Study in Scarlet (1887)
2. The Sign of the Four (1890)
3. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
4. The Valley of Fear (1915)"
"Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a novel by Lew Wallace, published by Harper and Brothers on November 12, 1880, and considered 'the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century'. It became a best-selling American novel, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) in sales. The book also inspired other novels with biblical settings and was adapted for the stage and motion picture productions.
Ben Hur remained at the top of the U.S. all-time bestseller list until the 1936 publication of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. The 1959 MGM film adaptation of Ben Hur is considered one of the greatest films ever made and was seen by tens of millions, going on to win a record 11 Academy Awards in 1960, after which the book's sales increased and it surpassed Gone with the Wind. It was blessed by Pope Leo XIII, the first novel ever to receive such an honour. The success of the novel and its stage and film adaptations also helped it to become a popular cultural icon that was used to promote numerous commercial products.
The story recounts the adventures of Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish prince from Jerusalem, who is enslaved by the Romans at the beginning of the first century and becomes a charioteer and a Christian. Running in parallel with Judah's narrative is the unfolding story of Jesus, from the same region and around the same age. The novel reflects themes of betrayal, conviction, and redemption, with a revenge plot that leads to a story of love and compassion."
"Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843 and the first edition, published on 19th December, was so successful that it sold out in just six days. The publishers had to produce two further editions between Christmas and the new year to meet the demand, and the novella has never been out of print.
A Christmas Carol tells the story of a greedy money-lender, Ebenezer Scrooge, who is first visited by the ghost of his former business partner and then by three spirits - the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. They show Scrooge's lack of compassion to him, compelling him to act more compassionately in the future and to honor Christmas in his heart."
"In 1840s St. Petersburg the ageing copyist Makar Dievushkin is, with various degrees of subtlety, trying to woo Barbara Dobroselova, a young woman who has had a swift fall in fortunes. Told in alternating letters to each other, their past stories and current hopes play out in raw and personal detail, as the daily realities of an uncaring and expensive town take hold.
Poor Folk was Fyodor Dostoevsky's first novel and was written to try and cover his escalating debts from his expensive lifestyle and gambling addiction. Luckily for Dostoevsky, it was an immediate success when it was published in the St. Petersburg Collection, and the accolades from critics such as Belinsky and Herzen propelled him into the high echelons of Russian literary society. This edition is the 1915 translation by C. J. Hogarth."
"Pygmalion is a play by George Bernard Shaw, named after the Greek mythological figure. It premiered at the Hofburg Theatre in Vienna on 16 October 1913 and was first presented in German on stage to the public in 1913. Its English-language premiere took place at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End in April 1914 and starred Herbert Beerbohm Tree as phonetics professor Henry Higgins and Mrs Patrick Campbell as Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle.
In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion fell in love with one of his sculptures, which then came to life. The general idea of that myth was a popular subject for Victorian era British playwrights, including one of Shaw's influences, W. S. Gilbert, who wrote a successful play based on the story called Pygmalion and Galatea that was first presented in 1871. Shaw would also have been familiar with the musical Adonis and the burlesque version, Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed. Shaw's play has been adapted numerous times, most notably as the 1938 film Pygmalion, the 1956 musical My Fair Lady and its 1964 film version.
Shaw mentioned that the character of Professor Henry Higgins was inspired by several British professors of phonetics: Alexander Melville Bell, Alexander J. Ellis, Tito Pagliardini, but above all, the cantankerous Henry Sweet."
"Hard Times: For These Times (commonly known as Hard Times) is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirises the social and economic conditions of the era.
Hard Times is unusual in several ways. It is by far the shortest of Dickens's novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it. Also, unlike all but one of his other novels, Hard Times has neither a preface nor illustrations. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town, in some ways similar to Manchester, though smaller. Coketown may be partially based on 19th-century Preston.
One of Dickens's reasons for writing Hard Times was that sales of his weekly periodical Household Words were low, and it was hoped the novel's publication in instalments would boost circulation - as indeed proved to be the case. Since publication it has received a mixed response from critics. Critics such as George Bernard Shaw and Thomas Macaulay have mainly focused on Dickens's treatment of trade unions and his post-Industrial Revolution pessimism regarding the divide between capitalist mill owners and undervalued workers during the Victorian era. F. R. Leavis, a great admirer of the book, included it - but not Dickens's work as a whole - as part of his Great Tradition of English novels."
"Emily Climbs is the second in a series of novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery. It was first published in 1925. While the legal battle with Montgomery's publishing company (L.C. Page) continued, Montgomery's husband Ewan MacDonald continued to suffer clinical depression. Montgomery, tired of writing the Anne series, created a new heroine named Emily. At the same time as writing, Montgomery was also copying her journal from her early years. The biographical elements heavily influenced the Emily trilogy."
"Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, commonly referred to as Leviathan, is a book written by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and published in 1651 (revised Latin edition 1668). Its name derives from the biblical Leviathan. The work concerns the structure of society and legitimate government, and is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential examples of social contract theory. Leviathan ranks as a classic Western work on statecraft comparable to Machiavelli's The Prince. Written during the English Civil War (1642-1651), Leviathan argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign. Hobbes wrote that civil war and the brute situation of a state of nature ('the war of all against all') could only be avoided by strong, undivided government."
"Shirley, A Tale is a social novel by the English novelist Charlotte Brontë, first published in 1849. It was Brontë's second published novel after Jane Eyre (originally published under Brontë's pseudonym Currer Bell). The novel is set in Yorkshire in 1811-12, during the industrial depression resulting from the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. The novel is set against the backdrop of the Luddite uprisings in the Yorkshire textile industry.
The novel's popularity led to Shirley's becoming a woman's name. The title character was given the name that her father had intended to give a son. Before the publication of the novel Shirley was an uncommon but distinctly male name. Today it is regarded as a distinctly female name."
"The Professor, A Tale. was the first novel by Charlotte Brontë. It was written before Jane Eyre, but was rejected by many publishing houses. It was eventually published, posthumously, in 1857, with the approval of Charlotte Brontë's widower, Arthur Bell Nicholls, who took on the task of reviewing and editing the text."
"The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter include 21 children's books featuring animals.
Beatrix Potter (28 July 1866 - 22 December 1943) was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Born into an upper-middle-class household, Potter was educated by governesses and grew up isolated from other children. She had numerous pets and spent holidays in Scotland and the Lake District, developing a love of landscape, flora, and fauna, all of which she closely observed and painted. Though Potter was typical of women of her generation in having limited opportunities for higher education, her study and watercolours of fungi led to her being widely respected in the field of mycology. In her thirties, Potter self-published the highly successful children's book The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Following this, Potter began writing and illustrating children's books full-time.
Included in this collection:
1. The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902)
2. The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (1903)
3. The Tailor of Gloucester (1903)
4. The Tale of Benjamin Bunny (1904)
5. The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904)
6. The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle (1905)
7. The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan (1905)
8. The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher (1906)
9. The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit (1906)
10. The Story of Miss Moppet (1906)
11. The Tale of Tom Kitten (1907)
12. The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck (1908)
13. The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or, The Roly-Poly Pudding (1908)
14. The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies (1909)
15. The Tale of Ginger and Pickles (1909)
16. The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse (1910)
17. The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes (1911)
18. The Tale of Mr. Tod (1912)
19. The Tale of Pigling Bland (1913)
20. The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse (1918)
21. Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes (1922)"
"Villette is an 1853 novel written by English author Charlotte Brontë. After an unspecified family disaster, the protagonist Lucy Snowe travels from her native England to the fictional French-speaking city of Villette to teach at a girls' school, where she is drawn into adventure and romance.
Villette was Charlotte Brontë's third and last novel; it was preceded by The Professor (her posthumously published first novel, of which Villette is a reworking), Jane Eyre, and Shirley."
