Classics audiobooks

Robinson Crusoe

By: Daniel Defoe

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 10 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

Widely regarded as the first English novel, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is one of the most popular and influential adventure stories of all time. This classic tale of shipwreck and survival on an uninhabited island was an instant success when first published in 1719, and it has inspired countless imitations.



In his own words, Robinson Crusoe... Read more

Mansfield Park

By: Jane Austen

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 14 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

From its sharply satiric opening sentence, Mansfield Park deals with money and marriage, and how strongly they affect each other. Shy, fragile Fanny Price is the consummate "poor relation." Sent to live with her wealthy uncle Thomas, she clashes with his spoiled, selfish daughters and falls in love with his son. Their lives are further... Read more

The Three Musketeers

By: Alexandre Dumas

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 23 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

Mixing a bit of seventeenth-century French history with a great deal of invention, Alexandre Dumas tells the tale of young D'Artagnan and his musketeer comrades, Porthos, Athos, and Aramis. Together they fight to foil the schemes of the brilliant, dangerous Cardinal Richelieu, who pretends to support the king while plotting to advance his own... Read more

Sense and Sensibility

By: Jane Austen

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 11 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Jane Austen's first published novel, Sense and Sensibility is a wonderfully entertaining tale of flirtation and folly that revolves around two starkly different sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. While Elinor is thoughtful, considerate, and calm, her younger sister is emotional and wildly romantic. Both are looking for a husband, but neither... Read more

Wuthering Heights

By: Emily Bronte

Narrated by: Anne Flosnik

Length: 12 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Perhaps the most haunting and tragic love story ever written, Wuthering Heights is the tale of Heathcliff, a brooding, troubled orphan, and his doomed love for Catherine Earnshaw. His desire for her leads him to madness when Catherine is made to marry a wealthy lord, sending Heathcliff on a lifelong quest to avenge himself upon those who stole... Read more

Emma

By: Jane Austen

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 14 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

The most perfect of Jane Austen's perfect novels begins with twenty-one-year-old Emma Woodhouse comfortably dominating the social order in the village of Highbury, convinced that she has both the understanding and the right to manage other people's lives—for their own good, of course. Her well-meant interfering centers on the aloof Jane Fairfax,... Read more

Persuasion

By: Jane Austen

Narrated by: Anne Flosnik

Length: 8 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

Jane Austen's final novel is the story of Anne Elliot, a woman who gets a second chance. As a teenager she becomes engaged to a man who seems perfect for her, Frederick Wentworth. But she is persuaded to break the engagement off by her friend Lady Russell, who believes that he is too poor to be a suitable match. The episode plunges Anne into a... Read more

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 7 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

Perhaps the best-loved nineteenth-century American novel, Mark Twain's tale of boyhood adventure overflows with comedy, warmth, and slapstick energy. It brings to life an array of irresistible characters—the awesomely self-confident Tom, his best buddy Huck Finn, indulgent Aunt Polly, and the lovely, beguiling Becky—as well as such unforgettable... Read more

Anne of the Island

By: L. M. Montgomery

Narrated by: Renée Raudman

Length: 8 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

New adventures lie ahead as Anne Shirley packs her bags, waves good-bye to childhood, and heads for Redmond College. With old friend Prissy Grant waiting in the bustling city of Kingsport and frivolous new pal Philippa Gordon at her side, Anne tucks her memories of rural Avonlea away and discovers life on her own terms, filled with... Read more

A Tale of Two Cities

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 13 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

This novel provides a highly charged examination of human suffering and human sacrifice, private experience and public history, during the French Revolution.



A Tale of Two Cities is one of Charles Dickens's most exciting novels. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, it tells the story of a family threatened by the terrible events of... Read more

Jane Eyre

By: Charlotte Bronte

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 17 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

This classic story shows how a young woman can overcome adversity and find true happiness. It is a story of passionate love, travail, and final triumph.



Orphaned at an early age, Jane Eyre leads a lonely life until she finds work as a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she meets the mysterious Mr. Rochester and sees a ghostly woman who roams the... Read more

Pride and Prejudice

By: Jane Austen

Narrated by: Josephine Bailey

Length: 11 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Pride and Prejudice captures the affections of class-conscious eighteenth-century English families with matrimonial aims and rivalries. This story of the Bennet family and the novel's two protagonists, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, is told with a wit that author Jane Austen feared might prove "rather too light and bright, and sparkling."



The... Read more

Great Expectations

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 17 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

Considered by many to be Charles Dickens's finest novel, Great Expectations traces the growth of the book's narrator, the orphan Philip Pirrip (Pip), from a boy of shallow dreams to a man with depth of character. From its famous dramatic opening on the bleak Kentish marshes, the story abounds with some of Dickens's most memorable characters.... Read more

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 9 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

Huckleberry Finn, rebel against school and church, casual inheritor of gold treasure, rafter of the Mississippi, and savior of Jim the runaway slave, is the archetypal American maverick.



Fleeing the respectable society that wants to "sivilize" him, Huck Finn shoves off with Jim on a rhapsodic raft journey down the Mississippi River. The two bind... Read more

Plato's Republic

By: Simon Blackburn

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 4 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Plato is perhaps the most significant philosopher who has ever lived, and The Republic, composed in Athens in about 375 BC, is widely regarded as his most famous dialogue. Its discussion of the perfect city—and the perfect mind—laid the foundations for Western culture and, for over two thousand years, has been the cornerstone of Western... Read more

White Noise

By: Don DeLillo

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 12 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

Now a Netflix film!

Winner of the National Book Award, White Noise tells the story of Jack Gladney, his fourth wife, Babette, and four ultra­modern offspring as they navigate the rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. When an industrial accident unleashes an “airborne toxic event,” a lethal black... Read more

Babbitt

By: Sinclair Lewis

Narrated by: George Guidall

Length: 14 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

With his breathtaking social insight and his graceful sentences, Sinclair Lewis-a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner-stands out as one of the most important American writers of the 20th century. At turns lyrically soul-searching and scathing in its honesty, Babbitt captures the essence of the 1920s while remaining a timeless piece of literature.... Read more

Barchester Towers

By: Anthony Trollope

Narrated by: Margaret Hilton

Length: 21 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

First, a warning: If you haven't read any Trollope, start with The Warden; it's the first in a series of which Barchester is second. Next, a rather shocking warning: Trollope may be as addictive as a soap opera. It has plenty of the right ingredients-archly drawn characters and plots that enmesh the listener in the daily ups and downs of those... Read more

Billy Budd, Sailor

By: Herman Melville

Narrated by: Frank Muller

Length: 3 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Critically acclaimed for more than 100 years, Herman Melville's sea tale, Billy Budd, is considered to be one of the small masterpieces of American fiction. An engaging plot on the surface, the exciting yarn set in 1791 also raises profound questions about the very nature of man himself. Handsome, young Billy Budd is well-liked by the other... Read more

The Black Monk and Other Stories

By: Anton Chekhov

Narrated by: George Guidall

Length: 4 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

Chekhov, noted author, playwright and physician, is one of the most accessible and enjoyable of the Russian writers. He writes about life's routines in a way that encompasses the heights and depths of human emotion all in the span of a day, or even a meal. This recording includes four of his most acclaimed short stories, including: The Black... Read more

Bless Me, Ultima

By: Rudolfo Anaya

Narrated by: Robert Ramirez

Length: 11 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Exquisite prose and wondrous storytelling have helped make Rudolfo Anaya the father of Chicano literature in English. Indeed, Anaya's tales fairly shimmer with the haunting beauty and richness of his culture. The winner of the Pen Center West Award for Fiction for his unforgettable novel Alburquerque, Anaya is perhaps best loved for his classic... Read more

Jennie Gerhardt

By: Theodore Dreiser

Narrated by: Lloyd James

Length: 13 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Jennie Gerhardt is the tragic story of an innocent, caring, beautiful young girl from an extremely poor family who throughout her life is drawn into affairs with two different men from a much higher social class. How members of her family, the family of one of the wealthy men, and society in general react to her situation is the basis of this... Read more

Just above My Head

By: James Baldwin

Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly

Length: 20 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

The stark grief of a brother mourning a brother opens this novel with a stunning, unforgettable experience. Here, in a monumental saga of love and rage, Baldwin goes back to Harlem, to the church of his groundbreaking novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, to the homosexual passion of Giovanni’s Room, and to the political fire that inflames his... Read more

The Confidence-Man

By: Herman Melville

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 10 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

In his ninth and final novel, cultural observer, novelist, and poet Herman Melville gives us a picture of everything wrong with America in the decade preceding the Civil War.Evoking Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, this is a story of interlocking tales from a group of steamboat passengers traveling down the Mississippi toward New Orleans. Aboard the... Read more