Audio Books

Family of Noblemen

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
Meet the Golovliovs, the ultimate dysfunctional family. In the difficult transition years before and after the liberation of Russia’s serfs, the Golovliovs are a gentry family ill-equipped to face the adaptations necessary in the new social order. Petty, back-biting, greedy, rigid, ignorant, and cruel, their personalities are captured in the array of nicknames they themselves give each other: The Hag, Little Judas, Simple Simon, Pavel the Sneak, the Orphans, the Blood-Sucker. They hate each other ferociously and utterly despise the peasants around them, who are gradually awakening to the potentialities of their new freedoms. In this most famous of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s novels, there is a keen sympathy toward the plight of women caught in the complexities of social change: Anninka and Lubinka, the aristocratic orphans who, seeking independence, recklessly cast themselves into the bohemian life; the matriarch Arina Petrovna, whose desperately vigorous administration of the estate leads to an exhilarating but only temporary stability; the peasant girl Yevpraksia, who is resistlessly taken by the loathsome Porfiry Vladimirych as his mistress. Far from a piece of social propaganda, A Family of Noblemen shows a subtle portraiture of the complex characters and convoluted circumstances of the time. (Expatriate)

Harrington

Maria Edgeworth
Harrington follows the protagonist of the same name who tries to explore his memories in order to understand his views on Jews. It begins with Harrington's early images of Jews, which are formed by a collection stories told by his maid, of Simon the Jew. His parents further strengthen this image by rewarding Harrington's antisemitism. Only after going to public school and coming face to face with the bully Mowbray are Harrington's views on Jews changed. Mowbray's tormenting of a Jewish peddler Jacob causes this sudden shift in thinking. Then with the introduction of Berenice Montenero, an American Jew who moved to England with her wealthy father, all does not run smoothly.

Three Elephant Power and Other Stories

Andrew Barton Paterson
From Banjo Paterson, bush poet and favorite son of Australia, here is a collection of colorful stories from Australia that offer a window into the past and the culture of the region.

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.

Bracebridge Hall

Washington Irving
Famed American humorist and essayist Washington Irving published a series of short pieces entitled "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gentleman" in 1815. Included in that collection were the chapters which later formed the standalone work "Old Christmas." This wonderful book introduced the world to Bracebridge Hall, the ancestral home of the Bracebridges, an old English family that lived according to the customs of those who were "unto the manor born." "Bracebridge Hall" is a follow-up to "Old Christmas" which looks at the lifestyle of the rich, country dwellers, their servants, friends and neighbors. The daily lives and adventures of this peculiar population of early 1800's England forms the foundation upon which the episodes explored in "Bracebridge Hall" is built. Washington Irving wrote the book based upon his own experiences visiting England and the very real Bracebridge Family with whom he spent much time.

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)

Zanzibar Tales

Bateman, George W.
If you have read any accounts of adventure in Africa, you will know that travelers never mention animals of any kind that are gifted with the faculty of speech, or gazelles that are overseers for native princes, or hares that eat flesh. No, indeed; only the native-born know of these; and, judging by the immense and rapid strides civilization is making in those parts, it will not be long before such wonderful specimens of zoölogy will be as extinct as the ichthyosaurus, dinornis, and other poor creatures who never dreamed of the awful names that would be applied to them when they were too long dead to show their resentment. As to the truth of these tales, I can only say that they were told to me, in Zanzibar, by negroes whose ancestors told them to them, who had received them from their ancestors, and so back; so that the praise for their accuracy, or the blame for their falsity, lies with the first ancestor who set them going. You may think uncivilized negroes are pretty ignorant people, but the white man who is supposed to have first told the story of “The House that Jack Built” was a mighty poor genius compared with the unknown originator of “Goso, the Teacher,” who found even inanimate things that were endowed with speech, which the pupils readily understood and were not astonished to hear; while “Puss in Boots” was not one-half so clever as the gazelle that ran things for Haamdaanee. It would be a severe task to rattle off “Goso” as you do “The House that Jack Built.”

Golden Threshold

Sarojini Naidu
Sarojini Naidu was a remarkable woman. Known as the Nightingale of India, she started writing at the age of thirteen and throughout her life composed several volumes of poetry, writing many poems which are still famous to this day.

As well as being a poet, Naidu was an activist and politician, campaigning for Indian independence and became the first Indian woman to attain the post of President of the Indian National Congress.

This volume contains the beautiful 'Indian Love-Song', as well as many other moving verses. All of them give insight into the heart and mind of this hugely important and influential woman.The poems are split into three categories: Folk Songs, Songs for Music and Poems.

Stories From Wagner

J. Walker McSpadden
Eleven stories of eleven operas by Richard Wagner: Das Rheingold. Die Walku¨re. Siegfried. Go¨tterda¨mmerung. Parsifal. Lohengrin. Tannha¨user. Die Meistersinger von Nu¨rnberg. Rienzi. Die Fliegende Holla¨nder. Tristan und Isolde.

Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey

Washington Irving
Although this book may not have the immediately recognizable title of, say, “Rip Van Winkle” or “Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” this book deserves its place among the pantheon of Washington Irving’s classics. Irving, who traveled extensively in his youth and throughout his life, was given a firsthand look into the lives of two great writers of the Empire: Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron.

Irving first chronicles his visit to Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott, whom he notes had not, at the time of his stay, yet received his title of “baronet.” Scott gives Irving a personal tour not only of his home but of the surrounding neighborhoods and landmarks that are a part of Abbotsford. We get a unique glimpse into the private life of the celebrated writer and the reverence the people of his time held him in.

Irving next moves on to Newstead Abbey, the home of the then-late Lord Byron. His travels are guided by Colonel Wildman, the individual who purchased Newstead Abbey following Byron’s death, and who restored the building to its former glory. In this portion of the book we learn of the fantastic and bizarre Byron family and its connection to Robin Hood and the famed locales of Sherwood Forest and Nottingham.

Few American writers gained famed for their extensive work outside of the United States. Washington Irving was unique in many respects, not the least of which was his enthusiastic curiosity of the “homeland” of so many Americans who were born literally around the time America was. His detailed writings of life in the early 19th century and the changes that were already taking over the more rural areas, can’t help but make one yearn for the even simpler times prior to his visit.

Elissa

H. Rider Haggard
Anthropologists have studied the ruins of a great city and temple in Zimbabwe, and it has left them in wonder. The construction and markings are Phoenician, but how was it developed so far South of the Fertile Crescent? Who built it and why? How was it destroyed?

H Rider Haggard has elaborated on this in the novel, Elissa. It is the story of the love of Prince Aziel, an Israelite grandson of both Solomon the Wise and a daughter of Pharaoh, and Elissa of Zimboe, a priestess of Baal. They are faced with impossible relationship choices on which depend the lives of thousands, and even their own immortal souls.

Able McLaughlins

Margaret Wilson
The Able McLaughlins won the Pulitzer Prize for a novel in 1924 in Margaret Wilson's debut work. Aptly described as "Little House on the Prairie - but for adults" the novel follows a group of Scottish families who pioneer the Iowa prairie in the 1860’s. The main storyline concerns Wully, the eldest McLaughlin son, who returns home from the Civil War to find that his sweetheart, Chirstie, has experienced an unspeakable tragedy that will profoundly affect the couple's lives. Their story is one of shame and honor, secrets and guilt, fear and loathing, revenge and forgiveness. But perhaps the stars of the novel are the strong older women such as Wully’s mother, Isobel, whose love and matriarchal strength keeps the family together as well as Chirstie’s stepmother, Barbara, who finds ways to make her good-for-nothing husband keep his promises. Interlaced with the plots are richly detailed descriptions of frontier prairie life, the love that families share, and the relationships within the Scottish immigrant community. (Warren Kati)

Workhouse Characters

Margaret Nevinson
In 1904, Margaret Nevinson, a respectable lady and active suffragette, joined the board of guardians in Hampstead Heath. The guardians had responsibility over the parish workhouse. In the UK, before the 1930s, one could not receive welfare assistance unless he or she entered the workhouse. A house for which one had to work. The conditions were so poor, sometimes even poorer then conditions in prison. The workhouse inspired many novels, the most famous is Oliver Twist. This collection of short stories is about the horrors Margaret saw, chiefly about things women had to endure. A married woman collected money and found a house for her and her children, but could not leave the workhouse as she was, by law, "the property of her husband." This particular story was adapted from her one-act play "In The Workhouse" which helped change that law only two years later. In another story, a smart lady who studied at the University Of Cambridge sinks into depression after the death of her husband and finds herself drunk at the workhouse. In 26 tales, Nevinson details the horrors of the system, one after the other, in an engaging and elegant style which appealed to the public. This book is perfect for fans of Charles Dickens, and for all those who love feminism and social history.

After the Divorce

Grazia Deledda
Giovanna and Costantino Ledda are a happily married couple living with their young child in a Sardinian country village close to their extended family. Costantino is wrongly convicted of murdering his wicked uncle and with no way of supporting herself, Giovanna reluctantly divorces him and is driven to marry Brontu Dejas, a wealthy but brutish drunkard who has always lusted after her.
As well as enduring a marriage amounting to slavery, Giovanna is derided by villagers for having two husbands. When Constantino is freed after the real murderer confesses to his crime, he and Giovanna are together again, but this time their relationship is outside the law, and sets both on a path of destruction, at the mercy of religious and social forces they cannot control.
The author, Grazia Deledda, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926, for writings which show passion and sympathy for the people of her native Sardinia, and ‘After the Divorce’ (Dopo il Divorzio) is one of her finest works.

Java Head

Joseph Hergesheimer
Java Head is a novel of the American merchant marine at the beginning of the great clipper ship era. It is laid in Salem, when that city was still a port rich with the traffic of the East Indies; a story of choleric ship masters, charming girls, and an aristocratic Manchu woman in carmine and jades and crusted gold. There is a drama as secret and poisonous as opium, lovely old gardens with lilac trees and green lattices, and elm-shaded streets ending at the harbor with the brigs unloading ivory from Africa and the ships crowding on their topsails for Canton. It is a romantic novel-and yet true-rather than a study of drab manners; there is no purpose in it other than the pleasure to be found in the spectacle of life supported by high courage and made beautiful by women in peacock shawls. (From the back cover of the 1919 edition)

Cliff-Dwellers

Henry Blake Fuller
Between the former site of old Fort Dearborn and the present site of our newest Board of Trade there lies a restricted yet tumultuous territory through which, during the course of the last fifty years, the rushing streams of commerce have worn many a deep and rugged chasm. These great canons—conduits, in fact, for the leaping volume of an ever-increasing prosperity—cross each other with a sort of systematic rectangularity, and in deference to the practical directness of local requirements they are in general called simply—streets. Each of these canons is closed in by a long frontage of towering cliffs, and these soaring walls of brick and limestone and granite rise higher and higher with each succeeding year, according as the work of erosion at their bases goes onward—the work of that seething flood of carts, carriages, omnibuses, cabs, cars, messengers, shoppers, clerks, and capitalists, which surges with increasing violence for every passing day. Summary by HENRY B. FULLER

Minnie's Sacrifice

Frances E. W. Harper
Minnie, who lives in the South, does not know she is a mulatto. She is sent to the North after her mother's death, and there she marries Louis, who is ironically also of mixed parentage. The story revolves around their discoveries and how they deal with their true identities. (N.B. There are some missing portions of the text.)

Cedric the Forester

Bernard Gay Marshall
A rollicking juvenile adventure tale, this historical fiction book received the Newbery Honor award in 1922. Set in England during the early 1200s, the scion of a Western Marches noble family relates the many encounters and battles that he faces with the Saxon yeoman who becomes his fast friend. This yeoman, great of cross-bow skill and strategy, often saves the day, and after earning knighthood, becomes instrumental in the making of the Magna Carta.

Doctor's Christmas Eve

James Lane Allen
A gentle reminiscence of a fictional country doctor as the year is drawing to a close. Unlike city doctors, the personal and professional life of a country doctor are closely intertwined.

Shan Folk Lore Stories from the Hill and Water Country

William Charles Griggs
The following stories have been taken from the great[v] mass of unwritten lore that is to the black-eyed, brown-skinned boys and girls of the Shan mountain country of Burma what "Jack the Giant Killer" and "Cinderella" are to our own children.

The old saw as to the songs and laws of a country may or may not be true. I feel confident, however, that stories such as these, being as they are purely native, with as little admixture of Western ideas as it was possible to give them in dressing them in their garment of English words, will give a better insight into what the native of Burma really is, his modes of thought and ways of looking at and measuring things, than a treatise thrice as long and representing infinitely more literary merit than will be found in these little tales; and at the same time I hope they will be found to the average reader, at least, more interesting. -- from the author's introduction

Our Little Russian Cousin

Mary Hazelton Blanchard Wade
This delightful little book is one of many titles in The Little Cousin Series. The author narrates details in the life of a fictional Russian girl named Petrovna. In doing so she introduces children to Russian life and culture at the turn of the 20th century.

Untempered Wind

Joanna E. Wood
Upon publication of “The Untempered Wind” in 1894, Joanna Wood quickly rose to international prominence, becoming in the next few years the most highly paid fiction-writer in Canada. In this novel, we find a detailed picture of village life. The narrative weaves through a variety of character types: the refined and the coarse, the humble and the self-righteous, the virtuous and the vicious. All these types are measured according to their treatment of Myron Holder, a young unwed mother — a “fallen woman” in the eyes of this “spiteful, narrow-minded village.”An early reviewer extolled Wood as Canada’s Charlotte Brontë, because of her sympathetic treatment of a disadvantaged woman trying to forge an independent life. An even more apt comparison might be to Thomas Hardy: like Hardy's characters, Myron is buffeted by cruel, relentless Fate — the “untempered wind” of the title.In “Silenced Sextet” (a 1993 study of once-popular Canadian women writers who subsequently dropped out of the public eye), Joanna Wood is seen as an important figure in the development of realism in Canadian literature: “No nineteenth-century writer better presents the sound, smell, and feel of day-to-day village life in this country.”

Peasant Tales of Russia

Vasily Nemirovich-Danchenko
Collection of Russian peasant tales:
"The Deserted Mine" - The key to saving the trapped miners is held by a man who hasn't spoken a word in 10 years.
"Mahmoud's Family" - Escaping prisoners of war should be shot, but Mahmoud has a family.
"A Misunderstanding" - A young woman seeks escape from her past, in a convent.
"The Luck of Ivan the Forgetful" - An incorrigible criminal escapes from a sentence of hard labor to find freedom and perhaps a kind of redemption in the forest.

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.

Gudrun

Ferdinand Schmidt
The charming story of “Gudrun” is a romance of the old heroic period, written by some unknown poet of Austria or Bavaria in the thirteenth century. Next to the "Nibelungen Lied," it is the most important of the German epic poems...The same elemental passions are depicted. The men are brave, vigorous heroes, rejoicing in battle and feats of prowess; the women are beautiful, constant, and courageous. There are many fine delineations of character in the original, as well as vigorous sketches of northern scenery. The figure of Gudrun stands out in bold relief among the maidens. There are few more beautiful characters, indeed, in the poems of the old heroic period...Gudrun’s name is always spoken by her people with reverence. "Her courage and constancy were extolled by them, and in after days her fame was as radiant as the stars in the heavens." (George P. Upton, Translator's Preface)

Jeremy And Hamlet: A Chronicle Of Certain Incidents In The Lives Of A Boy, A Dog, And A Country Town

Hugh Walpole
Hamlet is Jeremy’s dog. This 1923 book is Hugh Walpole’s second volume in his Jeremy semi-autobiographical trilogy (Jeremy (1919 available at librivox.org), Jeremy at Crale (1927, available at fadedpage.org)), about a ten-year-old English boy. One commentator wrote this of the first book: “With affectionate humor, Mr. Walpole tells the story of Jeremy and his two sisters, Helen and Mary Cole, who grow up in Polchester, a quiet English Cathedral town…. Mr. Walpole has given his narrative a rare double appeal, for it not only recreates for the adult the illusion of his own happiest youth, but it unfolds for the child-reader a genuine and moving experience with real people and pleasant things.”

English Audio Books

The most popular500

Children400

Fiction750

Fantasy350

Horror/Ghost stories700

Dictionary 180,000

Fiction364

Action & Adventure315

Animals & Nature275

Myths, Legends & Fairy Tales222

Family117

General102

Historical43

Poetry48

Religion37

School33

Short works52

Non-fiction76

Reference5

Religion19

Science21

History14

Biography23

General113

Comedy76

Satire26

Tragedy & Drama101

Romance10

General694

Action & Adventure603

Classics (Greek & Antiquity)94

Crime & Mystery195

Detective322

Culture & Heritage127

Dramatic Readings151

Epistolary Fiction47

Erotica12

Travel Fiction42

Family Life123

Biographies & Memoirs73

Historical Fiction433

Humorous Fiction387

Literary227

Nature & Animal63

Nautical & Marine97

Religious Fiction109

Romance477

Sagas16

Satire127

Sports Fiction9

Suspense & Espionage79

War & Military Fiction89

Westerns98

Fantastic Fiction103

Myths, Legends & Fairy Tales178

Horror & Supernatural Fiction150

Gothic Fiction25

Science Fiction490

Fantasy Fiction83

Short Stories260

Anthologies37

Single Author Collections142

Published before 180020

Published 1800-1900207

Published 1900 onward207

General483

Anthologies44

Single author156

Ballads & Epics43

Narratives13

Multi-version601

Non-Fiction427

War & Military170

Animals62

Art, Design & Architecture43

Biography & Autobiography360

Memoirs187

Business & Economics31

Crafts & Hobbies15