In Defense of Women - audiobook
H. L. MENCKEN (1880 - 1956)
In Defense of Women is H. L. Mencken's 1918 book on women and the relationship between the sexes. Some laud the book as progressive while others brand it as reactionary. While Mencken didn't champion women's rights, he described women as wiser in many novel and observable ways, while demeaning average men. According to Mencken's biographer, Fred Hobson: Depending on the position of the reader, he was either a great defender of women's Read more [...]
Category: Social criticism
Ruth audiobook
by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-1865)
The book is a social novel, dealing with Victorian views about sin and illegitimacy. It is a surprisingly compassionate portrayal of a 'fallen woman', a type of person normally outcast from respectable society. The title of the novel refers to the main character Ruth Hilton, an orphaned young seamstress who is seduced and then abandoned by gentleman Henry Bellingham. Ruth, pregnant and alone, is taken in by a minister and his sister. They Read more [...]
Hard Times audiobook
by Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Hard Times, the shortest of Dickens's full-length novels, is set in the fictitious Victorian-England city of Coketown, where facts are the rule and all fancy is to be stamped out. The plot centers around the men and women of the town, some of whom are beaten down by the city's utilitarian ideals and some of whom manage to rise above it. The novel was written in 1854 and was a scathing attack on then-current ideas of utilitarianism, which Dickens Read more [...]
Middlemarch audiobook
by George Eliot
The book examines the role of education in the lives of the characters and how such education and study has affected the characters. Rosamond Vincy's finishing school education is a foil to Dorothea Brooke's religiously-motivated quest for knowledge. Rosamond initially admires Lydgate for his exotic education, and his intellect. A similar dynamic is present in Dorothea and Casaubon's relationship, with Dorothea revering her new husband's intellect and eloquence. Read more [...]
A Tale of Two Cities audiobook
by Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it is among the most famous works of fiction.
The novel depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats Read more [...]
The Pickwick Papers audiobook
by Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
A sportsman who doesn't hunt; a poet who doesn't write; a lover with no one to love; all three are devoted to their cheerful and benevolent leader, Mr. Pickwick. Join him and his friends, Winkle, Snodgrass, and Tupman, as they tour the country in search of adventures, knowledge, and stories. Along the way, they have their share of mishaps, and meet plenty of interesting characters, both the good and the not so good. (Mr. Pickwick's Read more [...]
Oliver Twist audiobook
or The Parish Boy's Progress
by Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress is the second novel by Charles Dickens. The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to London where he meets the Artful Dodger, leader of a gang of juvenile pickpockets. Oliver is led to the lair of their elderly criminal trainer Fagin, naively unaware of their Read more [...]
The Old Curiosity Shop audiobook
by Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Written in the years 1840 to 1841, when Dickens was twenty-eight years old, this is a 'Road' tale in the very best tradition. Little Nell Trent and her Grandfather are the main characters, who secretly set off from their home under cover of night, to escape the wicked dwarf Quilp. Pursued across England, their adventures lead them through poverty stricken city areas where several destitute people offer them aid on their way, into Read more [...]
Nicholas Nickleby audiobook
by Charles Dickens 1812-1870
Nicholas Nickleby is a young Devonshire man of nineteen, handsome and hot headed, devoted to his sister Kate and his parents. Following the death of Nicholas's father, they find themselves penniless, and travel to London to seek help from his uncle, Ralph Nickleby, a heartless, cunning rogue. He grudgingly finds employment for Nicholas in Dotheby Hall, a school in Yorkshire run by the brutal Mr. and Mrs. Wackford Squeers. Appalled at the Read more [...]
The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit audiobook
by Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Old Martin Chuzzlewit has heaps of money that has never brought him anything but misery. Estranged from his grandson and namesake, when word gets out that he is ill, he finds himself surrounded by a throng of relatives that he despises, all hoping to get a piece of the pie. He allows himself to be taken under the wing of his obsequious and hypocritical cousin, Seth Pecksniff, who is more than happy to shelter Read more [...]
Hard Times (dramatic reading)
by Charles Dickens
-=audiobook=-
Charles Dickens' 1854 novel opens with the philosophy of education espoused by the eminently practical Mr. Gradgrind, who prizes "facts and calculations." He raises his children, most prominently Louisa and Tom, to eschew imagination and emotion and embrace order and reason. The results are disastrous: Louisa marries out of duty to the supposed self-made man Mr. Bounderby, while Tom grows up dissolute, ultimately commits theft and Read more [...]
Great Expectations audiobook
by Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Great Expectations is written in the first person and is virtually a fictional autobiography of "Pip" from his childhood, through often painful experiences, to adulthood. It charts his progress as he moves from the Kent marshes - his social status radically changed having gained an unknown benefactor - to busy commercial London. The book is richly populated with a variety of extraordinary characters many of whom, unbeknownst to them, Read more [...]
Dombey and Son audiobook
by Charles Dickens
Dombey and Son is a novel by the Victorian author Charles Dickens. The story concerns Paul Dombey, the wealthy owner of the shipping company of the book's title, whose dream is to have a son to continue his business. The book begins when his son is born, and Dombey's wife dies shortly after giving birth.
As with most of Dickens' work, a number of socially significant themes are to be found in this book. In particular the book deals with the then-prevalent Read more [...]
A Christmas Carol (dramatic reading)
by Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visitations of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Yet to Come. (Summary by Wikipedia)
Cast
Ebenezer Scrooge: Andy Minter
Fred: mb
Bob Cratchit: Read more [...]
Bleak House audiobook
by Charles Dickens 1812-1870
The Chancery Court had jurisdiction over all matters of equity, including administration of estates, the guardianship of orphans, and disputed property disbursement. In Dickens' time, some cases could take years to be settled, changing the lives of those involved.
Esther Summerson, a young woman raised in a tough and unloving atmosphere, is unexpectedly requested to be a companion to two teenage orphans, Richard Carstone and Ada Clare, for Read more [...]
Jane Eyre (dramatic reading)
by Charlotte Bronte (1816 - 1855)
(FULL Audio Book)
Jane Eyre is a masterpiece of romance and hardship, penned by beloved author Charlotte Bront?. From a childhood spent as a dependent relation amongst cruel relatives and then as a student at a spirit-crushing charity school, Jane grows to become a remarkable woman: poor and plain in an era that viewed women as little more than ornaments, she believes in her own worth and craves independence and adventure. She becomes Read more [...]
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (dramatic reading)
by Anne Bronte (1820-1849)
audiobook
A mysterious young widow arrives at Wildfell Hall, an Elizabethan mansion which has been empty for many years, with her young son. She lives there under an assumed name, Helen Graham, and very soon finds herself the victim of local slander. Refusing to believe anything scandalous about her, Gilbert Markham discovers her dark secrets. In her diary Helen writes about her husband's physical and moral decline through Read more [...]