Listen to The Dead Letter with a movie-style soundtrack and amplify your audiobook experience.
"The Dead Letter: An American Romance" written by Metta Victoria Fuller Victor under the pseudonym, Seeley Regester, is credited by historians of popular literature to be the first full-length American crime fiction novel. The writing is melodramatic in places and includes opinions typical of the time period, but is an enjoyable, early example of the genre. The novel begins with Richard Redfield, a clerk in the "Dead Letter Office," opening an unclaimed letter. Upon reading the contents, he is convinced that the message relates to the events of a night two years prior when another young man was brutally murdered.
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A collection of gentle stories that draw us into that hidden world where fear is just around the next corner, and where loving hands can touch across the boundaries of death.
Listen to Persuasion with a movie-style soundtrack and amplify your audiobook experience.
Twenty-seven-year old Anne Elliot is Austen's most adult heroine. Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement when persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that such a match is unworthy. The breakup produces in Anne a deep and long-lasting regret. When later Wentworth returns from sea a rich and successful captain, he finds Anne's family on the brink of financial ruin and his own sister a tenant in Kellynch Hall, the Elliot estate. All the tension of the novel revolves around one question: Will Anne and Wentworth be reunited in their love?
Listen to Conjuror's House with a movie-style soundtrack and amplify your audiobook experience.
In the northern outreaches of the Canadian wilderness, it was understood that the Hudson Bay Company governed all trading, and one factor named Galen Albret took his position seriously. Free traders, or those who dared try to do their trading outside of the Company, found themselves having to face Galen Albret and his methods of dealing with them. One or two offenses he might tolerate, but for those who repeatedly refuse to acknowledge his warning out, he would send them on "La Longue Traverse" through the wilderness without supplies, and from which they seldom returned.
Ned Trent was one such free trader who defied both the Company and Galen Albret. The defining difference between Ned and the other free traders however, was his youth, energy, and good looks, which the Factor's daughter did not fail to recognize. What follows the initial confrontations between Ned, Galen Albret, and his daughter Virginia makes for a thrilling tale of adventure, daring, survival, and romance.
Conjuror's House was twice made into silent films titled "The Call of the North", the first being Cecil B. DeMille's first film in which he received solo directorial credit, and the second starring Noah Beery and Jack Holt (whose face was the basis for the face of Dick Tracy).
Listen to The Importance of Being Earnest with a movie-style soundtrack and amplify your audiobook experience.
The Importance of Being Earnest is a very popular play written by Oscar Wilde. In the satire, Algernon and Jack are two young members of the English gentry who pursue their romantic desires dishonestly. Both men want to adopt the name "Ernest," who is Jack's imaginary younger brother. The idea of name changing comes about when Algernon wants to marry Cecily, and Jack wants to marry Gwendolen. However, it just so happens that Cecily and Gwendolen are only interested in marrying men named Ernest!
Listen to Beacon Lights of History V5 with a movie-style soundtrack and amplify your audiobook experience.
Volume 5 continues the commentary on world history begun in the first four volumes. This volume looks at some of the main religious figures of the Middle Ages, as well as social issues like the Crusades and the feudal system.
Listen to After London with a movie-style soundtrack and amplify your audiobook experience.
Jefferies' novel can be seen as an early example of "post-apocalyptic fiction." After some sudden and unspecified catastrophe has depopulated England, the countryside reverts to nature, and the few survivors to a quasi-medieval way of life.
The first part of the book, "The Relapse into Barbarism", is the account by some later historian of the fall of civilisation and its consequences, with a loving description of nature reclaiming England. The second part, "Wild England", is an adventure set many years later in the wild landscape and society. The book is not without its flaws (notably the abrupt and unsatisfying ending) but is redeemed by the quality of the writing, particularly the unnervingly prophetic descriptions of the post-apocalyptic city and countryside.
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Lessons in life, human nature, and compassion, though the eyes of our unlikely hero--a horse that goes by the name of Black Beauty.
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The Paris police prefect approaches amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin with a puzzle: a cabinet minister has stolen a letter from a woman of royalty whom he is now blackmailing. Despite a painstaking search of the minister's rooms, the police find nothing. When the prefect returns a month later and mentions a large reward for the letter, Dupin casually produces the document. Dupin later explains to his assistant, the story's narrator, that by analyzing the personality and behaviour of the minister, he correctly had concluded that the letter would be hidden in plain sight.
Listen to A Christmas Carol with a movie-style soundtrack and amplify your audiobook experience.
The miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is a cold-hearted man of business and has little time for the good humor and charity of the Christmas season. But that's about to change. A visit from his deceased business partner sets in motion a night in which Scrooge is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. Will his listen to their messages? Will he heed their warnings? Ebenezer Scrooge is about to take a Christmas journey that he won't soon forget.
Listen to The Oval Portrait with a movie-style soundtrack and amplify your audiobook experience.
The Oval Portrait is a short horror story written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842. Our protagonist takes refuge in an abandoned castle and discovers a room with a series of paintings accompanied by a small book describing them. His attention is attracted by an oval portrait depicting a young woman of rare beauty.
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A short tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes that is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. The tale has been translated into over a hundred languages.
