Audio Books

Around the World in Eighty Days

Verne, Jules
Around the World in Eighty Days (French: Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) is a classic adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, first published in 1873. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly-employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager set by his friends at the Reform Club.

Around the World in Eighty Days (version 4)

Verne, Jules
Around the World in Eighty Days (French: Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) is a classic adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, first published in 1873. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager set by his friends at the Reform Club

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) (version 2)

Jerome, Jerome K.
Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), published in 1889, is a humorous account by Jerome K. Jerome of a boating holiday on the Thames between Kingston and Oxford.
The book was initially intended to be a serious travel guide, with accounts of local history along the route, but the humorous elements took over to the point where the serious and somewhat sentimental passages seem a distraction to the comic novel. One of the most praised things about Three Men in a Boat is how undated it appears to modern readers — the jokes seem fresh and witty even today.

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) (version 3)

Jerome K. Jerome
A humorous account by English writer Jerome K. Jerome of a boating holiday on the Thames between Kingston and Oxford. The three men are based on Jerome himself (the narrator J.) and two real-life friends, George Wingrave (who would become a senior manager in Barclays Bank) and Carl Hentschel (the founder of a London printing business, called Harris in the book), with whom he often took boating trips. The dog, Montmorency, is entirely fictional but, "as Jerome admits, developed out of that area of inner consciousness which, in all Englishmen, contains an element of the dog." The trip is a typical boating holiday of the time in a Thames camping skiff. This was just after commercial boat traffic on the Upper Thames had died out, replaced by the 1880s craze for boating as a leisure activity.

Innocents Abroad, The

Twain, Mark
When you dive into Mark Twain’s (Samuel Clemens’) The Innocents Abroad, you have to be ready to learn more about the unadorned, ungilded reality of 19th century “touring” than you might think you want to learn. This is a tough, literary journey. It was tough for Twain and his fellow “pilgrims”, both religious and otherwise. They set out, on a June day in 1867, to visit major tourist sites in Europe and the near east, including Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, “the Holy Land”, and Egypt. What Twain records, in often humorous, sometimes grotesque but always fascinating detail, are the day-to-day ups and downs of discovering the truth about people and places. The truths they learn are often far different than their education and rumor have made them preconceive.
This is a voyage of discovery. It’s long and, in places, tiresome. But it’s revelatory about so much.

Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. The

Irving, Washington
Apart from "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" - the pieces which made both Irving and The Sketch Book famous - other tales include "Roscoe", "The Broken Heart", "The Art of Book-making", "A Royal Poet", "The Spectre Bridegroom", "Westminster Abbey", "Little Britain", and "John Bull". His stories were highly influenced by German folktales, with "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" being inspired by a folktale recorded by Karl Musäus. Stories range from the maudlin (such as "The Wife" and "The Widow and Her Son") to the picaresque ("Little Britain") and the comical ("The Mutability of Literature"), but the common thread running through The Sketch Book — and a key part of its attraction to readers — is the personality of Irving's pseudonymous narrator, Geoffrey Crayon. Erudite, charming, and never one to make himself more interesting than his tales, Crayon holds The Sketch Book together through the sheer power of his personality - and Irving would, for the rest of his life, seamlessly enmesh Crayon's persona with his own public reputation.

Three Men on the Bummel

Jerome, Jerome K.
Some time after "Three Men in a Boat", George, Harris and Jerome decided to go on a cycling holiday through Germany.
This relaxed and gently humorous story of the three friends wandering in and around the Black Forest is coloured by anecdotes, odd tales and Jerome's comments on the German people and their way of life.
(Published in 1914

Dash for Khartoum

G. A. Henty
When a nursemaid mixes up her baby boy and the baby of the family she works for, the family decides to keep both. Years later, the nursemaid returns, intent on using the boys to get money. When the boy she chooses first refuses to help and instead runs away, his adopted family is willing to do everything they can to rescue him. But will it be enough when war threatens in the Sudan--the runaway's destination?

Europeans, The

James, Henry
The Europeans: A sketch is a short novel by Henry James, published in 1878. It is essentially a comedy contrasting the behaviour and attitudes of two visitors from Europe with those of their relatives living in the 'new' world of New England. The novel first appeared as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly for July-October, 1878. James made numerous minor revisions for the first book publication.

From the Earth to the Moon, Version 2

Jules Verne
Jules Verne takes aim at some amusing stereotypes of Americans in this story of a pre-rocketry attempt to shoot a cannonball to the Moon. Those Yankees don’t do anything by halves!

His means is a Columbiad cannon so enormous that it must be bored 900 feet into the ground, so immense that 1200 smelting furnaces would be needed to create the iron for its casting, so stupendous that 100 tons of guncotton would be needed to loft its cannonball heavenwards.

The journey must be watched from the tallest peak of the Rocky Mountains through a new telescope with a reflector measuring 16 feet in diameter and a tube reaching skyward 280 feet.

And then - a simple telegram upsets all the preparations. An unknown Frenchman has taken ship and is on the way. And he has firmly decided that he will ride inside the projectile!

Round the Moon (Version 2)

Jules Verne
Jules Verne’s sequel to his “From the Earth to the Moon” begins with a short chapter to catch you up, if you missed the first book.Then we join our three adventurers in their huge projectile as they gather themselves after the shock of being fired at the Moon from the Columbiad cannon. Perhaps in a nod to Yankee exceptionalism, Verne permits them an extraordinary encounter in space, and better yet – to survive it!But that encounter has a lasting effect: despite all the careful preparations to deposit the projectile on the Moon, it appears the travelers are destined to miss it! (The book is not called “On the Moon”, is it?!)Careful scientists at heart, the former artillerymen in the projectile note every occurrence faithfully in their notebooks, along with the details of their observations of the Moon as they fly past… and round it. That precision might pay off as they try to figure out what happens to them next: will they fly off into space, become an eternal satellite of the Moon, or perhaps, something else?And do they have any way at all to affect that?

Golden Silence, The

Williamson, Alice Muriel
Trying to get away from an engagement he had got himself into more or less against his will, Stephen Knight travels to Algiers to visit his old friend Nevill. On the Journey there he meets the charming and beautiful Victoria. She is on her way to Algiers to search for her sister, who had disappeared years ago after marrying an Arab nobleman. With the support of his friend, Stephen Knight decides to help the girl - but when she also disappears, the adventure begins...

Penelope's English Experiences

Wiggin, Kate Douglas
Penelope's English Experiences is a fictional travelogue, which documents the experiences of three American ladies on a visit to England. Included are scenes in London and the village of Belvern, containing fanciful sketches of a West-end ball, portraits of domestic originals, etc., characterized by humorous trifling and droll exaggeration of English traits. By the author Mother Carey's Chickens, A Cathedral Courtship, etc.

Voyage Out (Version 2)

Virginia Woolf
Rachel Vinrace embarks for South America on her father's ship and is launched on a course of self-discovery in a kind of modern mythical voyage. The mismatched jumble of passengers provide Woolf with an opportunity to satirise Edwardian life. The novel introduces Clarissa Dalloway, the central character of Woolf's later novel, Mrs Dalloway. Two of the other characters were modelled after important figures in Woolf's life. St John Hirst is a fictional portrayal of Lytton Strachey and Helen Ambrose is to some extent inspired by Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell.[7] Rachel's journey from a cloistered life in a London suburb to freedom, challenging intellectual discourse and discovery very likely reflects Woolf's own journey from a repressive household to the intellectual stimulation of the Bloomsbury Group.

Three Men on the Bummel (Version 2)

Jerome K. Jerome
Our Friends from Three Men in a Boat, to Say Nothing of the Dog, are back. In this funny sequel to Three Men in a Boat J., George, and Harris are out of the boat and on the land riding their bikes. Their lives are too stressful and they need a break from the daily mundane, so they put their heads together and come up with a brilliant idea they decide to travel through the Black Forest of Germany on a bicycling tour. Since two of our friends are now married it seems they will also have to convince their wives that this is a good idea without getting each other into trouble! Meant to be a traveling book, but of course is anything but, let's go along on their journey and see for ourselves what kind of antics and fun our three old friends get caught up in. This book was published eleven years after the original "Three Men in a Boat".

Tom Sawyer Abroad by Huck Finn

Mark Twain
Tom Sawyer Abroad is a novel by Mark Twain published in 1894. It features Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in a parody of Jules Verne-esque adventure stories. In the story, Tom, Huck, and Jim set sail to Africa in a futuristic hot air balloon, where they survive encounters with lions, robbers, and fleas to see some of the world's greatest wonders, including the Pyramids and the Sphinx. Like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, Detective, the story is told using the first-person narrative voice of Huck Finn.

Purple Land

William Henry Hudson
In W.H. Hudson’s first novel, an Englishman wandering on horseback across the pampas finds adventure and romance in Uruguay. The full title became: “The Purple Land: Being the Narrative of One Richard Lamb's Adventures in The Banda Oriental, in South America, as Told By Himself”. In the preface to "The Sun Also Rises", President Teddy Roosevelt said that everyone should read "The Purple Land."

Rome Express, The

Griffiths, Arthur
The passengers in the sleeping car of the Rome Express were just woken and informed that they will reach Paris soon, and a bustle ensues. Only one passenger cannot be awoken by the porter, no matter how loudly he knocks. At last, when the door is forced open, the occupant of the compartment is found dead - stabbed to the heart. The murderer must be found among the passengers...

Wheat Princess

Jean Webster
Marcia Copley, an American Heiress, comes to Rome. Typically for the period, she may want to attract an aristocrat. He brings the title, she brings the money to support it. Her adventures in Rome are different than she anticipated. Rich and poor live side by side, and the author does her best to describe both walks of life vividly and truthfully. Jean Webster is the author of Daddy Long Legs and Dear Enemy. This particular novel would also please fans of Henry James and George Gissing.

Deephaven

Jewett, Sarah Orne
Sarah Orne Jewett is best known for her clean and clear descriptive powers that at once elevate common-place daily events to something remarkable, and lend dignity and grace to the most humble and homely human character.In Deephaven, go with her on vacation to an unforgettable sea side village where time runs slower and small pleasures are intensified. Much space is given to outdoor rambles and sights and events of daily living that draw you into another era. Jewett's loving and gentle descriptions of the people and life of Deephaven will make you sorry when the book is over, and long to be able to find that village for yourself.

Wonderful Year

William John Locke
Martin Overshaw and Corinna Hastings are leading dull and unproductive lives in Paris, having fled humdrum England. They fall in with Fortinbras, who calls himself a Marchand de Bonheur. He predicts a bright future for them and suggests they set out on a journey through France together. The book follows their adventure which turns out to be far more complicated than it might at first seem. They meet a variety of characters on the way and the looming threat of the First World War overshadows the second half of the book, which nonetheless ends happily for all concerned.

Emancipated

George Gissing
In Italy, everything is possible. Or, at least, much more than in the oppressive social order of the Victorian era. A group of British expatriates go to tour the country and do things they might live to either bless or regret. This book details their adventures and search of identity. The central question remains clear: can one be completely free? And, if so, is the price too high? ( Stav Nisser.)

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea (Version 3)

Jules Verne
Originally published 1870, this recording is from the English translation by Frederick P. Walter, published 1991, containing the unabridged text from the original French and offered up into the public domain. It is considered to be the very first science fiction novel ever written, the first novel about the undersea world, and is a classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne published in 1870. It tells the story of Captain Nemo and his submarine Nautilus, as seen from the perspective of Professor Pierre Aronnax

More Selected Classics of Washington Irving

Washington Irving
Washington Irving is, arguably, one of America's greatest writers. He spent many years in Europe and kept records of his observations, which formed the basis of such classics as "Old Christmas," "Bracebridge Hall" and "Tales of a Traveler." This volume is the latest entry in a series of collected essays written during these early years. The fragility of the heart forms the basis of many of these short stories. Irving handles the issues of love, heartbreak and death in a caring and compassionate way. ( Greg Giordano)

Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, A

Sterne, Laurence
After the bizarre textual antics of "Tristram Shandy", this book would seem to require a literary health warning. Sure enough, it opens in mid-conversation upon a subject never explained; meanders after a fashion through a hundred pages, then fizzles out in mid-sentence - so, a plotless novel lacking a beginning, a middle or an end. Let us say: an exercise in the infinitely comic.
"There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to get master of this short hand, and to be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and delineations, into plain words."
Sterne calls his fine sensitivity to body language (as we now term it) "translation". Much of the pleasure to be had from this wonderfully engaging book comes from his unmatched ability to extract random details from the chaos of experience to create comic turns imbued with Feeling. His Parson Yorick is the Sentimental Traveller: certainly a Man of Feeling, but one in whom "Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece..."

Cathedral Courtship

Kate Douglas Wiggin
An romantic comedy. A pretty young American girls tours English Cathedrals, with her very blue-blooded Aunt. Then boy meets girl. Boy chases girl. Boy loses girl. Boy finds girl. Finally, girl catches boy with the help of a mad bull.

City of the Sun

Tommaso Campanella
A dialogue between a Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitallers and a Genoese Sea-captain, about the latter's voyage to a utopian city.

Madame Chrysantheme

Pierre Loti
Pierre Loti (a nom de plume) was for many years an officer in the French Navy, giving him the opportunity to sample and analyze different national and cultural milieux, in which he deeply immersed himself. The present book, said to have formed the basis for the famous "Madame Butterfly" story, is presented as an autobiographical account of his marriage to a young Japanese woman while his ship was stationed in Nagasaki. His style is surprisingly modern for the period, perhaps anticipating Camus. His descriptions of summer in Nagasaki have a detail which is at the same time personal and detached, while his observations of the people are less than sympathetic. A sense of ennui and lack of conventional morality pervades.

Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage Vol. 1 (version 2)

Dorothy Richardson
"Pointed Roofs" is the first volume of "Pilgrimage," a series of thirteen autobiographical novels by Dorothy Richardson considered to have pioneered the "stream of consciousness" technique of writing. In a review of Pointed Roofs (The Egoist April 1918), May Sinclair first applied the term "stream of consciousness" in her discussion of Richardson's stylistic innovations. Richardson, however, preferred the term "interior monologue." Miriam Henderson, the central character in Pilgrimage, is based on the author's own life between 1891 and 1915. Richardson also important as a feminist writer because of the way her work assumes the validity and importance of female experiences as a subject for literature. Her wariness of the conventions of language, her bending of the normal rules of punctuation, sentence length, and so on, are used to create a feminine prose, which Richardson saw as necessary for the expression of female experience. Virginia Woolf in 1923 noted that Richardson "has invented, or, if she has not invented, developed and applied to her own uses, a sentence which we might call the psychological sentence of the feminine gender." ( Wikipedia [edited by Expatriate])

Diary of a Pilgrimage

Jerome, Jerome K.
A possibly fictionalised account by the comic novelist Jerome K. Jerome of a trip to Germany that he undertook with a friend in order to see the famous Passion Play at Oberammergau. The journey takes in London, Dover, Ostend, Cologne, Munich, Oberau, Oberammergau and then back to London via Heidelberg. As one might expect from the author of 'Three Men in a Boat', much goes wrong along the way, including seasickness, strange food, stranger beds, misleading guidebooks, bewildering train timetables, and numerous cultural and linguistic misunderstandings.

World's Desire

H. Rider Haggard
H. Rider Haggard (author of King Solomon's Mines the Allan Quatermain Series, and many more) and Andrew Lang (author of, among others, the rainbow coloured fairytale books) collaborate to lend their talent to one of the most fascinating and well known stories of all times. Odysseus returns home from the war, but does not find the peace and quiet which he craves. His home is ravaged, and his wife Penelope is dead. He comunicates with an old flame, the beautiful Helen of Troy, who sends him to his ultimate and defining last journey. Read about his adventures, and what might have been, in this beautiful novel by two of Britian's best Vctorian novelists.

House by the Medlar Tree

Giovanni Verga
In a nineteenth century Sicilian fishing village, the Malavoglia family gambles everything on being able to profit from a cargo of lupin nuts. The cargo is lost at sea and a succession of misfortunes and tragedies assails the family. A masterpiece of social commentary hailed within Italy but neglected by the wider world, The House by the Medlar Tree ranks alongside the works of Zola, Dickens or Balzac among the great books of European literature. The book is the inspiration behind the 1948 film 'La Terra Trema' ('The Earth Trembles'), one of the earliest works of the great Italian director Luchino Visconti.

Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew, King of the Beggars

Bampfylde Moore Carew
The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew recounts the wide-ranging exploits of a real-life rogue – a wily professional mendicant who roams 18th-century England extracting charity from merchants, clergyman, and members of the landed gentry alike, employing in his craft an ingenious variety of deceptions and disguises put on for the purpose. Often he impersonates a shipwreck-surviving seaman and uses his wide knowledge of foreign parts and personages to achieve plausibility. Or he might appear on a doorstep as a destitute woman in widow's weeds, toting borrowed babes to enhance the effect.

In the course of his psychological experiments in the science of inducing charity, Bampfylde Moore Carew takes great delight in touching the same mark more than once, back to back, offering up a different identity each time he scores. Sometimes, after the fact, he unmasks to his prey, and a drinking-party ensues. Twice, though, he is apprehended and transported to colonial America to be sold into slavery. During his first American sojourn, he lives among peaceful Indians before wangling his way back to England, feigning smallpox en route to avoid being pressed into military service. On another occasion, though, he is press-ganged onto a warship bound up the Baltic but, as always, uses his wits to make his way back to his beloved wife and daughter in England.

This book opens a panoramic window onto the day-to-day problems and social practices of those attempting to survive the precarious first half of the 18th century. Appended to the tale is A Dictionary of the Cant Language, listing the colorful, semi-secret argot used by mendicants to, among other things, describe targets of opportunity while evading comprehension by overhearing ears. A sort of urban dictionary of its day, it includes such surprising entries as "flaybottomist - a schoolmaster," "lousetrap - a comb" and "tip the velvet - to tongue a woman." (Grant Hurlock)

Secret City

Hugh Walpole
Written in the first person, The Secret City is a novel in three parts of a journey through post World War I Russia and the Revolution, during a period of Civil War and economic collapse. Our hero sets sail in 1916 and is swept up into the Revolution.The memories of a more opulent life remain.

Prairie-Schooner Princess

Mary Katherine Maule
The story of a Quaker family's journey from Ohio to Nebraska beginning in 1856. They encounter a mystery which leaves them an orphan girl who will forever change their lives. Blizzard, the Civil War, and Indians and more Indians fill this great adventure which tests their faith and ingenuity while shaping their loves and futures

Ghost Camp

Rolf Boldrewood
Englishman Valentine Blount is traveling in Australia, looking for his fortune. He meets up with John Carter, a bushman known locally as Little River Jack, who acts as his guide. They come across an abandoned camp - what is the story behind it? Whose camp was it? Why did they leave?

Pomona's Travels

Stockton, Frank R.
Pomona and Jone of Rudder Grange fame travel to England and Scotland. Along the way, Pomona tangles with wild pigs, haymaking, hotels great and small, Pullman cars, comparison-makers, and a Duchess. She makes two matches and - in her usual, unorthodox way - stag hunts and attends a knighting. Pomona is as hilarious as ever, if a bit more rounded off on the edges.

Poison Island

Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
Mysterious old Captain Coffin not only has a wild story about a Honduran island where treasure lies, he has a map. But they must be wary because it also holds “a poison that kills a man and keeps him fresh as paint”. Nothing can hold Harry back from tagging along and meeting up with murder, intrigue, a collection of colorful characters, and a vociferous parrot.

Anything once

Grant, Douglas
An unlikely pair of wanderers they were; the orphan girl Lou and her travelling partner Jim Botts. Jim appeared in need of following some apparent 'rules' during the journey, while Lou seemed in need of better clothing, and perhaps some refinement. But who was most benefitting whom on the week-long journey from rural village to big city? And which of the two was willing to try anything once?

October Vagabonds

Richard le Gallienne
Richard and his friend Colin must sadly return from their distant hermitage to New York City at summer's end. However, rather than take the train on the 430 mile trip to the city, the two decide to walk the route, for as Richard stated: "Don't you hate the idea of being hurled along in a train, and suddenly shot into the city again, like a package through a tube?" Certainly a lengthy walk it would be, but the two decide that the trip itself can be the most rewarding, and their trek begins. Along the way, they meet people they never would have met; they witness landscape, nature and habitat which they wouldn't have otherwise seen; and they learn about themselves and their place in the world which they may not have otherwise comprehended. A clever travelogue of two artistic types from first person point of view.

Road To Mandalay

Bithia Mary Croker
Sophy Leigh and Douglas Shafto come to Burma on the same ship in 1912. They come for different reasons. Through them, we learn about British India in the time between 1912 and 1914, just before WWI.
Academics view Bithia Mary Croker as one of the best authors who wrote about British India.
Note: This book is a product of its times. Therefore, some of the views which are expressed are different from today's.

Complete Works of Artemus Ward Part 4, To California and Return

Artemus Ward
Charles Farrar Browne, a native of Maine, became famous as a writer and lecturer under the name of Artemus Ward. Like his friend Mark Twain, Browne worked as a type-setter in his youth and in 1858, began publishing a series of letters, essays, and stories told in the first person by a droll, illiterate rube with a good measure of subtle common sense who commented on the events and fads of the day. Taking his character to the stage as a lecturer, Browne became an early-day prototype of what we now name a stand-up comedian. Artemus Ward was such a favorite of President Abraham Lincoln that the chief executive read one of the Ward stories to his assembled cabinet officers before getting down to the business of discussing the proposed Emancipation Proclamation. Browne’s writings became popular in England as well as in America, and he travelled to Britain to perform his Artemus Ward lectures and contribute to the comic magazine Punch. Browne contracted tuberculosis and died at the age of thirty-two in Southampton. (There was a real Artemus Ward, a general in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.)

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