AuthorLeo Tolstoy
NarratorDiana Quick
Duration2h 24m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Classics
Key StageA Level
PublisherCSA Word
VersionAbridged
Anna Karenina risks her lifestyle and wealth when she falls for the wrong man in this dramatic and romantic tale of choices and consequences. Married to a man of importance in 19th century St.Petersburg, Anna 's world crumbles when she falls passionately in love with the handsome Count Vronsky, and is forced to choose between her lover and her young son. Her tragedy lies in the cruelty meted out to her in high society by those who had been her friends.
Author: Charlotte Bronte
Author Charlotte Bronte
Narrator Charlotte Ritchie
Duration 21h 29m
Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Charlotte Ritchie, best known for her roles as Oregon in Channel 4's Fresh Meat, Hannah in the BBC Three comedy Siblings, and as Barbara Gilbert in BBC drama Call the Midwife. With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding sch...
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Author: Jonathan Swift
Author Jonathan Swift
Narrator Jasper Britton
Duration 35h 15m
Lemuel Gulliver, a slightly staid ship's doctor, relates the tales of his astonishing travels. He encounters the tiny, warring Lilliputians; the giant, sceptical Brobdingnagians; the ludicrously intellectual Laputans; and the idealistic - if rather stolid - Houyhnhnms and their bestial servants, the Yahoos. An immediate best-seller when it was firs...
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Author: Leo Tolstoy
Author Leo Tolstoy
Narrator Full Cast
Duration 9h 38m
Paterson Joseph, John Hurt, Lesley Manville and Harriet Walter are among the stellar cast of this landmark BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Leo Tolstoy's epic saga. 'Tolstoy's imagined world is recreated on air brilliantly by the extraordinary cast' The Spectator One of the greatest novels of all time, War and Peace explores historical, social, ethical...
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Author: Leo Tolstoy
Author Leo Tolstoy
Narrator Edward Petherbridge
Duration 4h 47m
Set against the epic backdrop of the Napoleonic wars and inspired by Tolstoy's own family history, War and Peace is expertly interpreted by Edward Petherbridge who brilliantly defines the varied and different characters that people this celebrated classic.
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Author: Leo Tolstoy
Author Leo Tolstoy
Narrator Juliet Stevenson
Duration 38h
The aristocratic Anna Karenina is a sophisticated woman who seems to have everything - beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son. Yet she becomes increasingly aware of the emptiness of her life and exchanges her privilaged existence as the wife of Karenin for a passionate affair with the impetuous Count Vronsky - with tragic consequences.
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Author: Leo Tolstoy
Author Leo Tolstoy
Narrator Full Cast
Duration 9h 20m
Tolstoy's epic story of a Russian family torn apart and rejuvenated by love and war. The war in question is Napoleon's Russian campaign in the early 19th century, which provides the background to the personal and public lives of Tolstoy's characters.
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Author: Kenneth Grahame
Author Kenneth Grahame
Narrator Alan Bennett
Duration 1h 17m
When the Water Rat invites the unassuming Mole to spend his first day ever in a boat on the river, and wise Badger comes along for the ride as well, so begins a marvellous season of adventure for the three friends. Mr Toad (he of Toad Hall) completes a happy foursome, but his tendency to get into hot water leads him into some rather hair-raising sc...
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Author: Emile Zola
Author Emile Zola
Narrator Traci Svensgaard
Duration 6h 41m
In a dingy apartment on the Passage du Pont-Neuf in Paris, Th‚rŠse Raquin is trapped in a loveless marriage to her sickly cousin, Camille. The numbing tedium of her life is suddenly shattered when she embarks on a turbulent affair with her husband's earthy friend, Laurent. But their passion for each other soon compels the lovers to commit a crime t...
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Author: Leo Tolstoy
Author Leo Tolstoy
Narrator Jonathan Oliver
Duration 3h 55m
One of Tolstoy's most important shorter works, The Kreutzer Sonata presents a problematic view of the relationship between the sexes and promotes abstinence as the solution. Pozdnyshev jealously observes the intimacy that emerges between his wife and a violin player. Haunted by 'The Kreutzer Sonata' over which they bonded; it plays round...
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Author: Charles Dickens
Author Charles Dickens
Narrator Simon Vance
Duration 31h 21m
The most gorgeously theatrical of all Dickens's novels, Nicholas Nickleby follows the delightful adventures of a hearty young hero in nineteenth-century England. Nicholas, a gentleman's son fallen upon hard times, must set out to make his way in the world. His journey is accompanied by some of the most swaggering scoundrels and unforgettable eccent...
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