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Audiobooks Narrated by Mary Robinson
Browse audiobooks narrated by Mary Robinson, listen to samples and when you're ready head over to Audiobooks.com where you can get 3 FREE audiobooks on us
Agnes Grey is the touching story of a young girl who decides to enter the world as a governess, but whose bright illusions of acceptance, freedom and friendship are gradually destroyed.
Drawing on her own experience, Anne Brontë charts the development of gentle Agnes and sympathetically depicts the harsh treatment she receives along the way. Leaving her idyllic home and close-knit family, Agnes arrives at the Bloomfield’s residence, inside whose walls reign cruelty and neglect. Although faced with tyrannical children and over-indulgent parents, the generosity of spirit and warm candor learnt from her own family never desert her. Agnes also remains firm in the Murray household, where she is used by the two disdainful young daughters for their own deceitful ends and where her chances of happiness are almost spoiled for her.
A deeply moving account, Agnes Grey seriously discusses the contempt and inhumanity shown towards the poor though educated woman of the Victorian age, whose only resource was to become a governess.
Kate Douglas Wiggin (1856-1923) was an important reformer of children's education at the turn of the century. During a period when children's place in society was little other than cheap labor, Kate Douglas Wiggin was dedicated to the betterment of youth. She was the first person to found a free kindergarten school in San Francisco in 1878. Her passion for children's rights carried over to her successful career as an author of children's books. In her 1887 tale 'The Birds' Christmas Carol', Kate Douglas Wiggin tells the story of the angelic Carol Bird, a young girl who spreads mirth to everyone around her. Born on Christmas, Carol tragically falls ill when she is five years old. The novel follows her heartwarming plan to hold a majestic Christmas celebration for the neighboring Ruggles family. A true Christmas classic, this tale is sure to inspire all with Christmas joy.
Keckley's first 30 years were spent as a slave, and the cruelties and injustices of her life are related clearly and succinctly. This enlightening memoir recounts how she was beaten and how she became a dressmaker to support her master and his family, how determined she was to purchase freedom for herself and her son, how her friends in St. Louis came to her aid, how she became Mary Todd Lincoln's dressmaker and close friend, and her perspectives and experiences from her inside view of Lincoln's White House. Keckley emerges as a calm and confident person who speaks of a very tumultuous period of American history.
At the Dry Tortugas During the War by Emily Holder, first published in 1892. The following is an account written by Emily Holder describing her memories of Fort Jefferson. As the wife of the post surgeon during the turbulent 1860s, she led a very singular life on one of the most out-of-the-way places then imaginable. As the congenial wife of a prominent member of the fort's garrison (and one of the few women on the island), she had broad access to many areas around the fort. Beginning in January 1892, her journal was published in a series of installments of The Californian Illustrated. Reproduced here, they tell the poignant and often fascinating story of the hardships, isolation and drama of daily life at the Dry Tortugas in the nineteenth-century. Among our coast defenses thirty-five or forty years ago Key West and Tortugas, Florida, were considered stations of sufficient importance for the establishment of elaborate fortifications.
Black Beauty is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she remained in her house as an invalid. The novel became an immediate best-seller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, but having lived long enough to see her only novel become a success. With fifty million copies sold, Black Beauty is one of the best-selling books of all time. While forthrightly teaching animal welfare, it also teaches how to treat people with kindness, sympathy, and respect. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 58 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. It is seen as a forerunner of the pony book.
Anne of Green Gables is a 1908 novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. Written for all ages, it has been considered a classic children's novel since the mid-twentieth century.
Narrated in the first person, the story is a collection of journal entries written by a woman whose physician husband (John) has rented an old mansion for the summer. Forgoing other rooms in the house, the couple moves into the upstairs nursery. As a form of treatment, the unnamed woman is forbidden from working, and is encouraged to eat well and get plenty of air, so she can recuperate from what he calls a 'temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency', a diagnosis common to women during that period.
The Wind in the Willows is a children's novel by Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. Alternately slow moving and fast paced, it focuses on four anthropomorphised animals in a pastoral version of England. The novel is notable for its mixture of mysticism, adventure, morality, and camaraderie and celebrated for its evocation of the nature of the Thames valley. In 1908 Grahame retired from his position as secretary of the Bank of England. He moved back to Cookham, Berkshire, where he had been brought up and spent his time by the River Thames doing much as the animal characters in his book do—namely, as one of the phrases from the book says, 'simply messing about in boats'—and wrote down the bed-time stories he had been telling his son Alistair.
Keckley's first 30 years were spent as a slave, and the cruelties and injustices of her life are related clearly and succinctly. This enlightening memoir recounts how she was beaten and how she became a dressmaker to support her master and his family, how determined she was to purchase freedom for herself and her son, how her friends in St. Louis came to her aid, how she became Mary Todd Lincoln's dressmaker and close friend, and her perspectives and experiences from her inside view of Lincoln's White House. Keckley emerges as a calm and confident person who speaks of a very tumultuous period of American history.
