Classics audiobooks

A Rogue’s Life

By: Wilkie Collins

Narrated by: Bernard Mayes

Length: 5 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

This delightful tale of thwarted ambition and forbidden love follows the adventures and fortunes of an endearing young rogue, Frank Softly. Originally appearing serialized in Household Words in 1859, the rogue is one of Collins' most richly comic creations.Propelled into society by his ever-hopeful father, Frank is introduced to a variety of... Read more

Under the Greenwood Tree

By: Thomas Hardy

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 5 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

One of the most popular of Hardy’s novels, this charming pastoral idyll is a lightly humorous depiction of life in an early Victorian rural community. Drawn from Hardy’s childhood memories, it represents, he said, “a true picture at first hand of the personages, ways, and customs which were common in the villages.”The story delicately balances... Read more

The Sea Wolf

By: Jack London

Narrated by: Brian Emerson

Length: 9 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

He is a man capable of abandoning two sailors in an open boat, yet he is an avid and thoughtful reader of the moral philosophers. He is Wolf Larsen: captain of the seal-hunting Ghost, the unforgettable protagonist of one of the world's great sea novels.Tormented by his own convictions, Larsen is an enigma both fascinating and repellent to his... Read more

The Children’s Homer

By: Padraic Colum

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 4 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

Padraic Colum's classic retelling combines the immortal stories from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into one glorious saga of heroism and magical adventure. Come voyage to ancient Greece with Achilles who, guided by the gods, seeks vengeance on the Trojans. And follow Odysseus on his perilous journey on the sea—through the land of the Cyclopes, past... Read more

Felix Holt, the Radical

By: George Eliot

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 17 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

“If a woman really believes herself to be a lower kind of being, she should place herself in subjection….If not, let her show her power of choosing something better.” This is the challenge thrown down to George Eliot’s heroine, Esther Lyon, who dreams of marrying into a life of refinement. But as she struggles to make her choice between two men,... Read more

Cousin Bette

By: Honoré de Balzac

Narrated by: Johanna Ward

Length: 16 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

Bette, a poor relation of the beautiful Adeline, nurses a terrible grudge against her cousin's family, on whom she depends. That family is slowly being ruined by the uncontrollable sexual appetites of Adeline's husband, Baron Hulot—and it is this weakness that will give the cunning Cousin Bette an opportunity to exact her vengeance.A profound... Read more

Captain Blood

By: Rafael Sabatini

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 10 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

In 1685, Irish physician Peter Blood is happily settled in a small English town when the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth interrupts the peace. After saving the life of a wounded nobleman who turns out to be a rebel, Blood is charged with treason and sentenced to ten years as an indentured slave in the Caribbean colonies.On the islands, Blood... Read more

The Arabian Nights

By: Kate Douglas Wiggin & Nora A. Smith

Narrated by: Johanna Ward

Length: 11 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

This collection of some of the best-known and best-loved tales from The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, or The Thousand and One Nights, includes the stories of Sinbad and his voyages, Ali Baba and the cave of the forty thieves, Aladdin and his wonderful lamp, and seven more fantastic tales.In this treasure house of the imagination, you will find... Read more

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: Stuart Langton

Length: 10 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

In this mischievous yarn by Mark Twain, a Yankee mechanic named Hank Morgan is knocked unconscious in a fight and awakens to find himself at Camelot in AD 528. Brought before the knights of the Round Table, he is condemned to death but saves himself by using his nineteenth-century scientific knowledge to pose as a powerful magician. After... Read more

Phineas Finn

By: Anthony Trollope

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 22 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

Phineas Finn is an Irish MPA who is climbing the political ladder, largely through the assistance of his string of lovers. The questions he is forced to ask himself about honesty, independence, and parliamentary democracy are questions still asked today.Phineas Finn is the second of Anthony Trollope's six Palliser novels, which together comprise... Read more

From the Earth to the Moon

By: Jules Verne

Narrated by: Bernard Mayes

Length: 5 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

Written more than a century before man landed on the moon, this classic adventure tale has proved to be one of Jules Verne’s most prophetic. It is also a forerunner of today’s science fiction.At the close of the Civil War, the members of the elite Baltimore Gun Club find themselves unemployed and bored. Finally, their president, Impey Barbicane,... Read more

One of Ours

By: Willa Cather

Narrated by: Kristen Underwood

Length: 14 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Willa Cather’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel tells of the making of a young American soldier.Claude Wheeler, the sensitive, aspiring protagonist, resembles the youngest son of a peculiarly American fairy tale. His fortune is ready-made for him, but he refuses to settle for it. Alienated from his crass father and pious mother, all but rejected by... Read more

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

By: Anne Brontë

Narrated by: Frederick Davidson & Wanda McCaddon

Length: 15 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

Like her sisters Emily and Charlotte, Anne Brontë published under a male pseudonym, yet still this novel was scorned by many for its exposure of the abusive male chauvinism that was concealed, like all things sexual, during the Victorian Era.Just as Anne had to use a male pseudonym in order to publish, Helen Graham, the novel’s protagonist and a... Read more

Le Morte d’Arthur, Vol. 1

By: Sir Thomas Malory

Narrated by: Frederick Davidson

Length: 15 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

This monumental work made the Arthurian cycle available for the first time in English. Malory took a body of legends from Celtic folklore that had been adapted into French literature, gave them an English perspective, and produced a work which ever since has had tremendous influence upon literature.The story begins with King Uther Pendragon’s... Read more

The Painted Veil

By: W. Somerset Maugham

Narrated by: Kate Reading

Length: 7 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s, this beautifully written character study is an affirmation of the human capacity to grow, change, and forgive.The Painted Veil is the story of the beautiful but shallow young Kitty Fane, who marries for money rather than love. When her husband, a quiet doctor, discovers her adulterous affair, he forces... Read more

The Good Earth

By: Pearl S. Buck

Narrated by: Anthony Heald

Length: 10 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

This Pulitzer Prize–winning classic tells the poignant tale of a Chinese farmer and his family in old agrarian China. The humble Wang Lung glories in the soil he works, nurturing the land as it nurtures him and his family. Nearby, the nobles of the House of Hwang consider themselves above the land and its workers, but they will soon meet their... Read more

Le Morte d’Arthur, Vol. 2

By: Sir Thomas Malory

Narrated by: Frederick Davidson

Length: 17 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

This monumental work made the Arthurian cycle available for the first time in English. Malory took a body of legends from Celtic folklore that had been adapted into French literature, gave them an English perspective, and produced a work which ever since has had tremendous influence upon literature.The story begins with King Uther Pendragon’s... Read more

Queen Lucia

By: E. F. Benson

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 8 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

England between the wars was a paradise of calm and leisure for the very, very rich. Into this enclave is born Mrs. Emmeline Lucas—La Lucia, as she is known—a woman determined to lead a life quite different from the subdued formality of her class.With her cohort, Georgie Pillson, and her husband, Peppino, Lucia upends the greats of high society:... Read more

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

By: Jules Verne

Narrated by: Frederick Davidson

Length: 11 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Follow along on this fantastic voyage as Professor Arronax, Ned, and Beth set out to capture a terrifying sea monster—before it captures them."The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten…For some time past, vessels had been met by 'an enormous thing,' a... Read more

Bleak House

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 32 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Bleak House opens in a London shrouded by fog—a fog that swirls most densely about the Court of Chancery, where the obscure case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce lies lost in endless litigation, slowly devouring an inheritance in legal costs.Against this ominous background, Dickens’ rich tapestry of a novel weaves together the fortunes and desires of... Read more

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

By: Muriel Spark

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 3 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

In the classic work that launched a play, a movie, and a song, Muriel Spark tells the darkly intriguing story of an eccentric Edinburgh teacher and the intense relationship she develops with six of her students.At the staid Marcia Blaine School for Girls, in Edinburgh, Scotland, teacher extraordinaire Miss Jean Brodie is unmistakably, and... Read more

The Small House at Allington

By: Anthony Trollope

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 22 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

TheSmall House at Allingtonintroduces Trollope's most beloved heroine, the charming Lily Dale, to the Barsetshire scene. Lily is the niece of Squire Dale, an embittered old bachelor living in the main house on his property at Allington. He has loaned an adjacent small house rent-free to his widowed sister-in-law and her daughters, Lily and Bell.... Read more

The Scarlet Pimpernel

By: Emma Orczy

Narrated by: Geoffrey Howard

Length: 8 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

“Who is this man, this Scarlet Pimpernel?” Each day this question grew more pressing to the rulers of the French Revolution. Only this man and his band of followers threatened their total power. Only this maddeningly elusive figure defied the vast network of fanatics, informers, and secret agents that the Revolution spread out to catch its... Read more

My Ántonia

By: Willa Cather

Narrated by: Jeff Cummings

Length: 7 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Widely recognized as Willa Cather’s finest book and one of the outstanding novels of American literature, My Ántonia tells of the life of early American pioneers in Nebraska.Through Jim Burden’s endearing, smitten voice, we revisit the remarkable vicissitudes of immigrant life in the Nebraska heartland with all its insistent bonds. Guiding the... Read more