Classic Audiobook Collection

Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling audiobook. Genre: adventure Real men don't take guff from snotty kids. Neither does Disko Troop, skipper of the 'We're Here', a fishing schooner out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, when his crew fishes Harvey Cheyne out of the Atlantic. There's no place on the Grand Banks for bystanders, so Harvey is press-ganged into service as a replacement for a man lost ove...

The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson audiobook. Genre: adventure In the unsettled years of England's War of the Roses, where a man stood on the issue of kingship could make his fortune... or end his life. Dick Shelton, a nobly-born lad, is on the cusp of manhood, and he is thrust bodily into this stew where allegiances shift under one's feet. Circumstances cause him to fall in with a gentlema...

Amusement Only by Richard Marsh audiobook. Genre: mystery Amusement Only is a spirited Edwardian collection of twelve tales by Richard Marsh, each built to entertain while keeping a faint edge of danger just out of sight. In The Lost Duchess, London society is jolted when the Duke of Datchet learns his wife has seemingly vanished from a sealed carriage, and a brazen ransom demand turns a glitterin...

Vagabond Adventures by Ralph Keeler audiobook. Genre: biography First published in 1870, Vagabond Adventures is Ralph Keeler's fast-moving memoir of how an orphaned, restless American boy turns himself into a wanderer long before he is old enough to understand the price of freedom. At eleven, Keeler flees an unhappy life in Buffalo and plunges into the rough schooling of docks, cabins, and lake st...

Phaedo by Plato audiobook. Genre: philosophy Plato's Phaedo is one of the great dialogues of his middle period, along with the Republic and the Symposium. The Phaedo, which depicts the death of Socrates, is also Plato's seventh and last dialogue to detail the philosopher's final days (the first six being Theaetetus, Euthyphro, Sophist, Statesman, Apology, and Crito). In the dialogue, Socrates disc...

Ten From Infinity by Paul W. Fairman audiobook. Genre: scifi It began when a pedestrian got hit by a cab in New York City. No doubt it was the only motor mishap in the history of creation that reached out among the stars—for far out in space a signal was registered: Something has gone wrong.... And something had gone wrong, for the doctors discovered their accident patient had two hearts. It was t...

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry audiobook. Genre: speeches Set on the eve of the American Revolution, Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death captures Patrick Henry's electrifying address to the Second Virginia Convention in March 1775, when the colonies were still divided over whether reconciliation with Britain remained possible. As delegates weigh petitions, boycotts, and patience ag...

The First Battle of Bull Run by P. G. T. Beauregard audiobook. Genre: history In this first-person military narrative, Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard reconstructs the tense weeks that led to the Civil War's first great clash at Manassas, known in the North as the First Battle of Bull Run. Beginning with the aftermath of Fort Sumter and his sudden call to defend the rail junction at Manass...

The Cloak by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol audiobook. Genre: tragedy In wintry St Petersburg, Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin is a meek, middle-aged civil servant whose life is reduced to copying documents in silence and being mocked by his colleagues. Threadbare and nearly invisible, he endures the citys cold and the offices casual cruelty with the same dull patience that has shaped him for years. When...

Twice-Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne audiobook. Genre: folklore In Twice-Told Tales, Nathaniel Hawthorne gathers a landmark collection of short fiction that helped define American romanticism and the darkly luminous literature of New England. Moving between village streets, lonely forests, and haunted corners of history, these stories blend everyday detail with the uncanny, revealing how pride,...

Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne audiobook. Genre: romance 'Mosses from an Old Manse' is a short story collection by Nathaniel Hawthorne, first published in 1846. The collection includes several previously-published short stories and is named in honor of The Old Manse where Hawthorne and his wife lived for the first three years of their marriage. A second edition was published in 18...

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne audiobook. Genre: drama 'The wrongdoing of one generation lives into the successive ones and... becomes a pure and uncontrollable mischief.' Hawthorne's moral for 'The House of the Seven Gables,' taken from the Preface, accurately presages his story. The full weight of the gloomy mansion of the title seems to sit on the fortunes of the Pyncheon...

This World is Taboo by Murray Leinster audiobook. Genre: scifi Calhoun, a field man for the Interstellar Medical Service, expects routine inspections: land, check public health conditions, and leave a world safer than he found it. But when his small Med Ship reaches Weald Three, he finds a prosperous grain planet locked in fear. Nearby Dara, once ravaged by a plague, is under strict quarantine, an...

Conquest Over Time by Michael Shaara audiobook. Genre: scifi Pat Travis has made a career out of being first. As a veteran Contact Man for a powerful Earth company, he races rival operators to newly opened worlds, gambling on speed, nerve, and a reputation for impossible luck. But when Travis reaches the planet the locals call Mert, his winning streak turns instantly sour: according to the planet'...

Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge audiobook. Genre: family Mary Mapes Dodge created an instant bestseller with 'Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates.' She wanted the book to be partly a book of travels and partly a domestic story. It is a tale written for children that adults also find interesting and uplifting. Dodge writes as if she is sending a series of letters from Holland to...

The Treaty With China by Mark Twain audiobook. Genre: history First published in the New York Tribune on August 28, 1868, The Treaty With China, its Provisions Explained is Mark Twain at his most sharp-eyed and plainspoken, turning a dense diplomatic document into a lively, provocative listening experience. With the newly concluded U.S.-China treaty (often associated with diplomat Anson Burlingame...

Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain audiobook. Genre: adventure When Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer stumble onto a mysterious balloon, they find themselves swept into a journey far beyond the Mississippi River. Narrated in Huck's plainspoken, observant voice, the story launches the boys - along with their loyal friend Jim - into an accidental voyage over the Atlantic and into the deserts and ancient...

The Gilded Age, A Tale of Today by Mark Twain audiobook. Genre: drama The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today is an 1873 novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner that satirizes greed and political corruption in post-Civil War America. The term gilded age, commonly given to the era, comes from the title of this book. Twain and Warner got the name from Shakespeare's King John (1595): 'To gild refined g...

The Stolen White Elephant by Mark Twain audiobook. Genre: comedy When a sacred white elephant arrives in America as a diplomatic gift, it is supposed to be the ultimate symbol of goodwill and grandeur. Instead, it becomes the center of a wildly escalating fiasco. Mark Twain frames the tale as an official report, following a conscientious but increasingly bewildered investigator tasked with recover...

Sketches New and Old by Mark Twain audiobook. Genre: comedy Sketches New and Old is a lively collection that shows Mark Twain at his most sharp-eyed and mischievous, gathering together short pieces that range from tall tales and travel anecdotes to satire, memoir, and moments of surprising tenderness. With his trademark plainspoken voice and perfect sense of timing, Twain turns everyday situations...

Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion by Mark Twain audiobook. Genre: comedy In Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion, Mark Twain turns a short vacation into a comic field report on the art of doing as little as possible. Leaving wintry New York behind, Twain boards a ship bound for Bermuda with a traveling companion known simply as the Reverend, and immediately discovers that even an escape...

The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain audiobook. Genre: adventure The Prince and the Pauper (1882) represents Mark Twain's first attempt at historical fiction. The book, set in 1547, tells the story of two young boys who are identical in appearance: Tom Canty, a pauper who lives with his abusive father in Offal Court, London, and Prince Edward son of Henry VIII of England. Due to a series of cir...

Old Times on the Mississippi by Mark Twain audiobook. Genre: history In Old Times on the Mississippi, Mark Twain returns to the great river that shaped his imagination and his youth, recounting the years when he learned the demanding craft of steamboat piloting. With a newcomer's awe and a veteran's hard-won confidence, Twain takes listeners into the bustling world of river landings, shifting sand...

Mark Twain’s Letters from Hawaii by Mark Twain audiobook. Genre: history In Mark Twains Letters from Hawaii, the young journalist Samuel Clemens - not yet the world famous Mark Twain - turns a brief assignment in the Pacific into a vivid, funny, and sharply observed portrait of the Hawaiian Islands in the 1860s. Writing as a roaming correspondent, Twain moves from bustling Honolulu to rural distri...

A Horse’s Tale by Mark Twain audiobook. Genre: adventure Told in the proud, observant voice of Soldier Boy, Buffalo Bill's favorite mount, A Horse's Tale carries Mark Twain's wit into a frontier cavalry post where bravery is measured, reputations are made, and animals are expected to serve without complaint. Soldier Boy knows the trails, the bugle calls, and the vanity of the two-legged world, and...