Classics audiobooks

The House of the Seven Gables - Abridged

By: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Narrated by: Joan Allen

Length: 5 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: Yes

A dark, many-gabled mansion in a small New England village— haunted by fraudulent dealings, accusations of witchcraft, and sudden death— houses the distinguished Pyncheon family. They are plagued by a centuries-old curse that casts the shadow of ancestral sin on its last four members. The arrival of Phoebe Pyncheon from... Read more

Don Quixote de la Mancha - Abridged

By: Miguel Cervantes

Narrated by: Christopher Cazenove

Length: 5 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Entranced by romantic tales of heroism and chivalry, Don Quixote— self-proclaimed knight errant— embarks on a delusional quest for fame and adventure. The eccentric Spanish country gentleman and his companion Sancho encounter an array of unforgettable characters and undertake some of the most famously foolhardy exploits... Read more

Visions of Cody - Abridged

By: Jack Kerouac

Narrated by: Graham Parker

Length: 3 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: Yes

“To read On the Road but not Visions of Cody is to take a nice sightseeing tour but to forgo the spectacular rapids of Jack Kerouac’s wildest writings.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
“The centerpiece of all [Kerouac’s] novels.”—The Washington Post
 
Originally written in 1951–1952, Visions of Cody was an underground classic by the time it was... Read more

Ellen Foster - Abridged

By: Kaye Gibbons

Narrated by: Kaye Gibbons

Length: 2 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: Yes

"When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy."

So begins the tale of Ellen Foster, the brave and engaging heroine of Kaye Gibbons's first novel, which won the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Wise,... Read more

Sense and Sensibility

By: Jane Austen

Narrated by: Glenda Jackson

Length: 6 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

In a timeless tale of misguided romance and heartbreak, Jane Austen's first novel of love and marriage is seen through the eyes of two very different heroines, the Dashwood sisters—cautious, level-headed Elinor and impulsive lively Marianne—one representing sense and the other sensibility. In order to achieve the love and happiness they seek,... Read more

Hard Times - Abridged

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Paul Scofield

Length: 3 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In the squalor of a textile town, successful businessman and arch-pragmatist Thomas Gradgrind, proclaiming that he is a self-made man, teaches his children to suppress their imaginations and embrace hard facts. He arranges the marriage of his daughter Louisa to Josiah Bounderby, an unattractive, boastful manufacturer who is thirty years older... Read more

Treasure Island - Abridged

By: Robert Stevenson

Narrated by: Michael York

Length: 1 hour 34 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Jim Hawkins, the son of an innkeeper, longs for adventure. One of the inn's guests, a coarse old bully named Billy Bones, reveals a map showing the whereabouts of buried treasure. After Bones dies, Jim and his mother flee with the map to Squire John Trelawney, outwitting other pirates who were chasing Bones. With Trelawney's friend Dr. Livesey,... Read more

Stranger in a Strange Land

By: Robert A. Heinlein

Narrated by: Christopher Hurt

Length: 16 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Stranger in a Strange Land is the epic saga of an earthling, Valentine Michael Smith, born and educated on Mars, who arrives on our planet with “psi” powers—telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, telekinesis, teleportation, pyrolysis, and the ability to take control of the minds of others—and complete innocence regarding the mores of man.After... Read more

Randall and The River of Tim - Abridged

By: C.S. Forrester

Narrated by: AudioscapePlayers

Length: 2 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In 1917, the Great War is in full swing. Young Randall is a second lieutenant, and is lucky enough to escape some of the consequences of the conflict by contributing to the invention of a flare, which will be of benefit to the allies. He falls in love with a woman a few years his senior, and with the imminence of death ever in a young man's... Read more

Mark Twain’s Library of Humor

By: Mark Twain & various authors

Narrated by: Marni Webb, Richard Russ & others

Length: 6 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Master wit Mark Twain selected these twenty-seven stories himself by fifteen of his favorite nineteenth century authors. The order follows that which Twain placed them in in the original anthology, published in 1888. He indulged his comic fancy rather than making a textbook in which all themes or authors are placed together, saying that "This... Read more

The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Abridged

By: Victor Hugo

Narrated by: Julie Christie

Length: 5 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: Yes

When Quasimodo appears before the masses as the "Pope of Fools," the crowd beholds an enormous cyclops-like creature— the hunchback's whole body seems a twisted grimace. Yet, with all his deformity, there is a certain grace and agility in him, and he possesses an endearing passion. When Esmerelda, the beautiful Romani woman, stands... Read more

Emma - Abridged

By: Jane Austen

Narrated by: Samantha Eggar

Length: 6 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Considered by many critics to be Jane Austen's finest achievement, Emma is the witty classic about youthful hubris and matchmaking gone awry. Emma Woodhouse, a privileged young lady with little to occupy her time, imagines that she dominates those around her in the small town of Highbury, but her inept matchmaking creates problems for herself... Read more

Sights Unseen - Abridged

By: Kaye Gibbons

Narrated by: Kaye Gibbons

Length: 2 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The bestselling author of Charms for the Easy Life reads "her best novel since Ellen Foster."

Kaye Gibbons' award-winning novels of Southern family life have won rave reviews coast to coast. Now, she tells the "story of family dislocation and crisis in restrained prose of unflinching clarity, with a honing eye for the small domestic details that... Read more

Mansfield Park - Abridged

By: Jane Austen

Narrated by: AudioscapePlayers

Length: 1 hour 49 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Fanny is brought up with her cousins, Tom, Edmund, Maria, and Julia. She is treated as an extra pair of hands - except that is, by Edmund. During her uncle's absence at his estates in the West Indeies, both Maria, (who is engaged to the stupid and wealthy Mr. Rushford), and Julia, fall in love with the fascinating Mr. Crawford, who is a man... Read more

Ramona

By: Helen Hunt Jackson

Narrated by: Boots Martin

Length: 5 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

This extraordinarily popular novel weaves together romance, history, and a passionate protest against the oppression of Native Americans in the 1800s. Termed the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the southwestern Indians and the first protest novel of California, the story vividly portrays three cultures—Indian, Mexican, and Anglo—locked in combat. The... Read more

Jane Ey - Abridged

By: Charlotte Brontë

Narrated by: AudioscapePlayers

Length: 2 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: Yes

After an unhappy childhood, 16 year-old Jane Eyre acquires the post of governess to a young girl at Thornfield Hall. Plain and poor Jane may be, but she is not to be intimidated by the owner of Thornfield Hall, Mr. Rochester, who tries to goad her into defending herself against his verbal pinpricks. As a backdrop to this duel of minds, is... Read more

Madame Bovary - Abridged

By: Gustave Flaubert

Narrated by: AudioscapePlayers

Length: 2 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Hoping to escape from a future without horizon, Emma marries the good and kind Charles Bovary, a doctor. Finding herslf in another sort of prison however, she seeks comfort in the arms of lovers, and plays into the hands of opportunists. She has not, after all, moved upwards, but rather sideways, into an even more claustrophobic existence.... Read more

The Moonston - Abridged

By: Wilkie Collins

Narrated by: AudioscapePlayers

Length: 1 hour 42 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The Moonstone is a classic detective story. John Herncastle, an English officer, kills three guards, and steals a precious jewel from the head of a Hindu moon-god, during the battle of Seringapatam. It passes into the hands of Miss Verinder, on the celebration of her eighteenth birthday. The Brahmins then come to regain it. That night the... Read more

The Woman in Whit - Abridged

By: Wilkie Collins

Narrated by: AudioscapePlayers

Length: 2 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Walter Hartright, a young Drawing teacher, encounters a woman at night, dressed in white, on his way to take up his post. He does not know that she has escaped from an asylum. She appeals to him for help - and then seems to vanish. An audio-dramatisation with full cast, sound effects, and 'audio-ambience' created for you by... Read more

Pride and Prejudic - Abridged

By: Jane Austen

Narrated by: AudioscapePlayers

Length: 2 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: Yes

When Mrs. Fenwick learns of Mr.D'Arcy's income, she envisages the end to one of the five principle problems in her life. If her single-minded daughter Elizabeth can be married off to someone of means, her four remaining problems might be less daunting. However, Mr. D'Arcy and Miss Elizabeth appear to take an instant dislike to each other - not... Read more

Time and Again - Abridged

By: Jack Finney

Narrated by: Campbell Scott

Length: 4 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The 50th anniversary edition of the beloved classic that Stephen King has called “THE great time-travel story.” Featuring a brand-new introduction by the New York Times bestselling author of Recursion, Blake Crouch.

When advertising artist Si Morley is recruited to join a covert government operation exploring the possibility of time travel, he... Read more

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Abridged

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: Wil Wheaton

Length: 3 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Pranks, adventures, fence painting, and murder— young Tom Sawyer and friends Huck Finn and Becky Thatcher encounter all of this and more in a small river town in the pre-Civil War South. Ever the mischief-maker, Tom is often on the wrong side of the rules at school and at home, under the watchful eye of his Aunt Polly. The Adventures... Read more

The Red Badge of Courage - Abridged

By: Stephen Crane

Narrated by: Richard Thomas

Length: 2 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, The Red Badge of Courage tells the story of Henry Fleming, a young private in the Union Army who flees from the horror of battle and then struggles with shame and self-loathing. Outstanding in its portrayal of the quiet tension and violent emotion of war, this powerful psychological study of a... Read more

The Fountainhead

By: Ayn Rand

Narrated by: Christopher Hurt

Length: 32 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

One of the century’s most challenging novels of ideas, The Fountainhead champions the cause of individualism through the story of a gifted young architect who defies the tyranny of conventional public opinion. The struggle for personal integrity in a world that values conformity above creativity is powerfully illustrated through three... Read more