Classic Audiobook Collection

The Master-Knot of Human Fate by Ellis Meredith audiobook. Genre: fantasy When a spring hike along a rugged Rocky Mountain trail turns into the unthinkable, two strangers are cut off from everything they ever knew. Adam, a capable, reflective man, and Robin, a sharp-witted woman with a fierce moral imagination, watch the world below them vanish in a sudden, overwhelming cataclysm. With no city lig...

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell audiobook. Genre: family If you like Jane Austen, you will probably like this book! Mrs. Gaskell, as she was often referred to, is considered one of the greatest British novelists of the Victorian era. She was one of the earliest novelists ever to use dialect in her works, finding often that no word but the vernacular would suffice to convey the me...

Ruth by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell audiobook. Genre: drama 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...

Round the Sofa by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell audiobook. Genre: family Round the Sofa (1859), is a book of stories by the lady that Charles Dickens called his “dear Scheherazade” due to her skill as a story teller. That Lady was Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell (North and South, Wives and Daughters, Cranford etc.). Mrs. Gaskell begins with Round the Sofa, a short story which she uses as a device to stitch to...

North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell audiobook. Genre: drama Set in Victorian England, North and South is the story of Margaret Hale, a young woman whose life is turned upside down when her family relocates to northern England. As an outsider from the agricultural south, Margaret is initially shocked by the aggressive northerners of the dirty, smoky industrial town of Milton. But as she a...

Mr. Harrison’s Confessions by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell audiobook. Genre: comedy It is asserted that the inspiration for Elizabeth Gaskell's marvellous stories of Cranford was her childhood home of Knutsford, a small town in Cheshire and to where she returned for a while as a young woman. This assertion is born out by an essay she wrote in 1849 entitled The Last Generation in England, in which sh...

Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell audiobook. Genre: comedy Cranford is the best-known novel of the 19th century English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. It was first published in 1851 as a serial in the magazine Household Words, which was edited by Charles Dickens. The fictional town of Cranford is closely modelled on Knutsford in Cheshire, which Mrs Gaskell knew well. The book has little in the way...

Cousin Phillis by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell audiobook. Genre: drama In a quiet corner of rural England, young Paul Manning begins his first job on a new railway line, commuting between the noise of industry and the calm of his relatives' farm. There he meets Cousin Phillis Holman, a gifted, well-read minister's daughter whose life is shaped by hard work, faith, and the close-knit rhythms of famil...

Peace on Earth, Good Will to Dogs by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott audiobook. Genre: romance If you don't like Christmas stories, don't read this one! And if you don't like dogs, I don't know just what to advise you to do! For I warn you perfectly frankly that I am distinctly pro-dog and distinctly pro-Christmas, and would like to bring to this little story whatever whiff of fir-balsam I can cajole fro...

Pollyanna Grows Up by Eleanor H. Porter audiobook. Genre: family Pollyanna, now cured of her crippling spinal injury, and able to walk again, goes to live in Boston with Mrs. Carew, a heart-broken woman searching for her lost nephew. Her Aunt Polly goes abroad with her new Uncle, Dr. Chilton. While in Boston, Pollyanna meets new friends and has several interesting adventures... A startling change...

Just David by Eleanor H. Porter audiobook. Genre: family After the death of his beloved father, a gentle, wide-eyed boy named David is sent from a lonely mountain home to live with relatives he has never met. He arrives with little more than a violin, a few simple habits shaped by hardship, and a disarming way of seeing the best in everyone. In the small New England town of Bethel, David is taken...

The Steam Man of the Prairies by Edward S. Ellis audiobook. Genre: adventure When the vast American frontier still feels unmapped and unforgiving, teenage adventurers Johnny Brainerd and his friend Kit discover a startling invention that seems torn from a dream: a towering, human-shaped machine powered by steam and built to stride across the open prairie. Guided by its brilliant young creator, the...

Nonsense Verses by Edward Lear audiobook. Genre: poetry This is a collection of some of the delightful nonsense verses and stories by Edward Lear. A lot of them are also my favorites. The Jumblies, The Owl and the Pussy-cat; the Broom, the Shovel, The Poker and the Tongs; The Duck and the Kangaroo; The Cummerbund; The Dong with the Luminous Nose; The New Vestments; Calico Pie; The courtship of the...

A Book of Nonsense by Edward Lear audiobook. Genre: poetry Edward Lear's A Book of Nonsense is a mischievous classic of comic verse that invites listeners into a world where logic takes a holiday and language becomes a toy. First published in the Victorian era and best known for its sparkling limericks, this collection parades an unforgettable cast: the Old Person of Peru, the Old Man with a beard...

Masters of Space by Edward E. Smith audiobook. Genre: scifi In Masters of Space, classic pulp-era science fiction expands from a hard-nosed naval expedition into a mystery about vanished powers that once ruled the galaxy. Jarvis Hilton, a young but driven leader, is put in charge of Project Theta Orionis: a handpicked team of scientists and officers aboard the warship Perseus, sent far from Earth...

A Short History of the US by Edward Channing audiobook. Genre: history Written for students and general readers, Edward Channing's A Short History of the United States distills the long sweep of American development into a clear, tightly organized narrative. Beginning with early voyages, exploration, and the first European footholds, Channing traces the hard work of colonization, the growth of reg...

The Dancing Girls by Edna Ferber audiobook. Genre: drama In The Dancing Girls, Edna Ferber gathers four sharp, warmhearted stories about ordinary people pushed to their limits by class, family obligation, and war. In the title tale, Chippewa, Wisconsin, is split cleanly by money and by the railroad tracks. Floyd 'Chug' Scaritt, a talented young garage owner and irresistible dance partner, knows ex...

Roast Beef, Medium by Edna Ferber audiobook. Genre: drama This book follows the adventures of Emma McChesney, a smart and savvy divorced mother who travels the Midwest as a sales representative for a large skirt and petticoat manufacturer. Her many adventures with people, (including predatory salesmen and hotel clerks), are funny and poignant. She is hardworking and able to outsell the slickest of...

Personality Plus by Edna Ferber audiobook. Genre: drama Set in bustling early 1900s New York, Personality Plus follows Emma McChesney, a stylish, sharp-witted divorced mother who has fought her way up from life on the road to a coveted seat in the office as partner in the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company. With a real home at last and a new level of responsibility, Emma expects challenges -...

One Basket by Edna Ferber audiobook. Genre: drama One Basket gathers Edna Ferber's most memorable short fiction into a single, wide-ranging portrait of American life, chosen and introduced by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author herself. Spanning decades and shifting from small-town streets to city apartments, from cramped kitchens to prosperous parlors, these stories follow people caught between wha...

The Valley of Decision by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: history Set in late 18th-century Italy on the eve of the French Revolution, Edith Wharton's debut novel follows Odo Valsecca, a sensitive boy raised among peasants who learns that his blood ties him to a ruling house. When a sudden turn of fortune draws him into aristocratic life and positions him to inherit the dukedom of Pianura, Odo arri...

The Touchstone by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: drama In turn-of-the-century New York, Stephen Glennard is a promising but faltering man of letters with one urgent desire: to marry Alexa Trent, the gracious woman he loves. But with his career slipping and money running out, Stephen finds himself trapped between respectability and desperation. A tempting opportunity appears when he realizes he st...

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: drama Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth follows Lily Bart, a beautiful, intelligent young woman trying to secure her place in New York's glittering Gilded Age society. With little money of her own and mounting debts, Lily must navigate a world where status is currency and marriage is often treated as a transaction. Moving between lavish drawin...

The Greater Inclination by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: drama First published in 1899, The Greater Inclination introduces Edith Wharton at the start of her career with a collection of short stories that cut through the polite surface of late-19th-century society. Across drawing rooms, country estates, and chance encounters abroad, Wharton follows men and women who discover that a single choice...

The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: drama Edith Wharton's The Glimpses of the Moon follows Susy Branch and Nick Lansing, two charming, cash-strapped members of New York's glittering social orbit who decide to marry for love while trying to outmaneuver the realities of money. Their plan is to live lightly, borrowing the luxuries of their wealthy friends and drifting from one...