Learn English with the classics
|
English Audiobooks
Learn English listening and reading Audiobooks, or if you know the language, just enjoy our catalog.
English Grammar
Use these English grammar lessons for self study or to consolidate your lessons with your teacher.
Mobile Apps
Download the best mobile apps for learning English, available for Android, iPhone, iPad and MAC.
Importance of Being Earnest, The (version 3)
Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is subtitled "A Trivial Comedy for Serious People," and has proved immensely popular since its first performance in 1895. The play certainly has its farcical and comic elements, such as the witty banter exchanged by the characters and the flippant attitude towards love and marriage that characterizes the action. However, the play also explores more serious themes through the central story of Jack Worthing's search for his identity.
Christmas Carol, A (version 2)
A Christmas Carol (full title: A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas) is A Christmas Carol is a Victorian morality tale of an old and bitter miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, who undergoes a profound experience of redemption over the course of one evening.
Walden
Walden by Henry David Thoreau is one of the best-known non-fiction books written by an American. Published in 1854, it details Thoreau’s life for two years, two months, and two days around the shores of Walden Pond. Walden is neither a novel nor a true autobiography, but a social critique of the Western World, with each chapter heralding some aspect of humanity that needed to be either renounced or praised. Along with his critique of the civilized world, Thoreau examines other issues afflicting man in society, ranging from economy and reading to solitude and higher laws. He also takes time to talk about the experience at Walden Pond itself, commenting on the animals and the way people treated him for living there, using those experiences to bring out his philosophical positions. This extended commentary on nature has often been interpreted as a strong statement to the natural religion that transcendentalists like Thoreau and Emerson were preaching.
Jungle Book, The (Version 2)
This is the classic story of Mowgli, the young boy raised by wolves in India: his escapades and adventures with his dear friends Bagheera the panther and Baloo the bear, his capture by the Monkey-People, his attempt at reintegration into human society, and his ultimate triumph over his avowed enemy the tiger Shere Khan. Included in the book is the story of the brave white seal, Kotick, and the tenacious young mongoose, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi who battled through the night to protect his human family from a pair of sly and viscous cobras. Packed with adventure and Jungle Law wisdom, this book has pervaded popular culture as the basis of many film and stage adaptations, including the popular Disney movie.
Sense and Sensibility
The two eldest Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne, one of whom (Elinor) embraces practicality and restraint while the other (Marianne) gives her whole heart to every endeavor. When the Dashwoods - mother Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor, Marianne, and youngest sister Margaret - are sent, almost impoverished, to a small cottage in Devonshire after the death of their father and the machinations of their brother's wife, they accept their new circumstances with as much cheer as they can muster even though their brother and his wife have taken over the family estate and fortune. Marianne finds herself falling in love with the dashing Willoughby, who ends up being not all that he appears. Elinor, the more sensible of the two, falls for Edward Ferrars, a match that seems much more suitable. All of these pleasant connections are, however, soon disrupted. Willoughby leaves and ignores Marianne. Elinor finds out an unexpected secret about Ferrars that puts her on her caution in pursuing their relationship. As these complications develop, Marianne soon finds herself distraught despite having attracted another suitor, the reliable, but older, Colonel Brandon. Elinor steps into the breach to try to help her sister regain her equilibrium. Both learn what a broken heart can feel like and adjust in their own separate ways. Since this is an Austen novel and a romance, be assured that all comes right in the end.
Princess of Mars, A (solo) Version 2
John Carter is mysteriously conveyed to Mars, where he discovers two intelligent species continually embroiled in warfare. Although he is a prisoner of four-armed green men, his Civil War experience and Earth-trained musculature give him superior martial abilities, and he is treated with deference by this fierce race. Falling in love with a princess of red humanoids (two-armed but egg-bearing), he contrives a daring escape and later rescues the red men from the hostility of another nation of their own race. In this struggle he enlists the aid of his former captors, whom he gradually civilizes, teaching them first the practical advantages of kindness to their beasts of burden and then of casting aside centuries of communal living in favor of the nuclear family. At last he even starts them on the path to mastering the arts of friedship and diplomacy. When the failure of the atmosphere-generator threatens the planet's inhabitants with extinction, Carter's luck, memory, and sheer determination make possible the salvation of the planet, but Carter himself falls unconscious before he knows the success of his efforts. The novel ends with his sudden involuntary return to Earth.
Treatise Of Human Nature, Volume 1, A
This book, published in two volumes called "books" by the author, is a treatment of everything from the origin of our ideas to how they are to be divided. It includes important statements of Scepticism and Hume's experimental method. Part 1 deals with the nature of ideas. Part 2 deals with the ideas of space and time. Part 3 deals with knowledge and probability. Part 4 deals with skeptical and other systems of philosophy, including a discussion of the soul and personal identity.
Roughing It
Roughing It is semi-autobiographical travel literature written by American humorist Mark Twain. It was authored during 1870–71 and published in 1872 as a sequel to his first book Innocents Abroad. This book tells of Twain's adventures prior to his pleasure cruise related in Innocents Abroad.
Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World
Following the Equator (American English title) or More Tramps Abroad (English title) is a non-fiction travelogue published by American author Mark Twain in 1897.
Twain was practically bankrupt in 1894 due to a failed investment into a "revolutionary" typesetting machine. In an attempt to extricate himself from debt of $100,000 (equivalent of about $2 million in 2005) he undertook a tour of the British Empire in 1895, a route chosen to provide numerous opportunities for lectures in the English language.
In Following the Equator, an account of that travel published in 1897, the author unmasks and criticizes racism, imperialism and missionary zeal in observations woven into the narrative with classical Twain wit.
Of particular interest, historically, are Twain's references to Cecil Rhodes in Australia and South Africa, the in-depth description of "Thugs" and "Thuggee" in India and the Boer War period and diamonds in South Africa.
Channel Passage, A
Volunteers bring you 10 recordings of A Channel Passage by Rupert Brooke. This was the weekly poetry project for August 30th, 2009.
Success
Volunteers bring you 15 recordings of Success by Rupert Brooke. This was the weekly poetry project for April 19th, 2009.
In a Garden
Volunteers bring you 16 different recordings of In a Garden by Amy Lowell. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of October 14th, 2007.
Feast of Lights, The
Volunteers bring you 9 recordings of The Feast of Lights by Emma Lazarus. This was the Weekly Poetry project for December 18, 2011.
Hanukkah, or the Festival of Lights, is the Jewish festival commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem during the 2nd century BCE.
This poem celebrating Hanukkah was written by Emma Lazarus, a Jewish American poet. Emma Lazarus also wrote 'The New Colossus,' a sonnet which is inscribed on a plaque on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
Wine, Water and Song
A collection of 16 poems by G.K. Chesterton. All of the poems in this book, except for "The Strange Ascetic" are taken from "The Flying Inn", a book by the same author.
Frost Spirit, The
Volunteers bring you 11 recordings of The Frost Spirit by John Greenleaf Whittier. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for October 28, 2012.
John Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet. He is considered one of the Fireside Poets and was influenced by Roberet Burns.