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Warden, The

Trollope, Anthony
Amongst the great popular novelists of the nineteenth century who are still read today, Anthony Trollope stands alongside his contemporary, Charles Dickens. His two series of novels, the political (The Pallisers) and the clerical (The Barsetshire Chronicles) are the best known. This book is the first of the Barsetshire series and was also Trollope’s first really successful novel.
In the mid nineteenth century there were a number of financial scandals in the Church of England including those of Rochester, where the endowments which should have supported the King’s School Canterbury had been diverted to the Dean and Chapter; and of the hospital of St Cross at Winchester where the Rev. Francis North, later the Earl of Guildford, had been appointed to the mastership of the hospital by his father the bishop. The revenues of the hospital were very considerable, the work involved minimal. The scandal soon broke.
Trollope based ‘The Warden’ on the St Cross case, but in the novel the Warden is a kindly, devoted, priest, beloved by all that knew him and is racked by fear that he is accepting money to which he is not entitled. His antagonist is his prospective son-in-law John Bold and his (somewhat unwelcome) ally is one of Trollope’s strongest characters, the Archdeacon of Barchester, Dr. Theophilus Grantly.
O Hollow Hollow Hollow

Gilbert, W. S.
Volunteers bring you 17 recordings of O Hollow Hollow Hollow by W.S. Gilbert. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 8, 2012.
Here is a poem by the "fleshly" poet, Bunthorne, from the opera Patience, by Gilbert and Sullivan. Who better to introduce it than the poet himself:
BUNTHORNE. It is a wild, weird, fleshy thing; yet very tender, very yearning, very precious. It is called, "Oh, Hollow! Hollow! Hollow!"
PATIENCE Is it a hunting song?
BUNTHORNE. A hunting song? No, it is not a hunting song. It is the wail of the poet's heart on discovering that everything is commonplace. To understand it, cling passionately to one another and think of faint lilies.
Bunthorne was considered to have been modelled on Oscar Wilde, but more recent reseach has suggested that this claim is not correct.
Where Angels Fear to Tread

Forster, E. M.
On a journey to Tuscany with her young friend and traveling companion Caroline Abbott, widowed Lilia Herriton falls in love with both Italy and a handsome Italian much younger than herself, and decides to stay. Furious, her dead husband's family send Lilia's brother-in-law to Italy to prevent a misalliance, but he arrives too late. Lilia marries the Italian and in due course becomes pregnant again. When she dies giving birth to her child, the Herritons consider it both their right and their duty to travel to Monteriano to obtain custody of the infant so that he can be raised as an Englishman.
Caleb Williams or Things As They Are

Godwin, William
The novel describes the downfall of Ferdinando Falkland, a British squire, and his attempts to ruin and destroy the life of Caleb Williams, a poor but ambitious young man that Falkland hires as his personal secretary. Caleb accidentally discovers a terrible secret in his master's past. Though Caleb promises to be bound to silence, Falkland, irrationally attached (in Godwin's view) to ideas of social status and inborn virtue, cannot bear that his servant should possibly have power over him, and sets out to use various means--unfair trials, imprisonment, pursuit, to make sure that the information of which Caleb is the bearer will never be revealed.
Godwin described the book as "a series of adventures of flight and pursuit; the fugitive in perpetual apprehension of being overwhelmed with the worst calamities", so that Caleb Williams can be classified as an early thriller or mystery novel.
Birches

Frost, Robert
Volunteers bring you 12 recordings of Birches by Robert Frost. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for February 21st, 2010.
Lifted Veil, The

Eliot, George
The Lifted Veil is a novella by George Eliot, first published in 1859. Quite unlike the realistic fiction for which Eliot is best known, The Lifted Veil explores themes of extrasensory perception, the essence of physical life, possible life after death, and the power of fate. The novella is a significant part of the Victorian tradition of horror fiction.
Pair of Blue Eyes, A

Hardy, Thomas
The book describes the love triangle between a young woman, Elfride Swancourt, and her two suitors from very different backgrounds. Stephen Smith is a socially inferior but ambitious young man who adores her and with whom she shares a country background. Henry Knight is the respectable, established, older man who represents London society.
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Woodlanders, The (version 2)

Hardy, Thomas
The Woodlanders is one of Hardys later novels,although he origianally intended it as a successor to Far From The Madding Crowd.It concerns the life and loves of Giles Winterborne,Grace Melbury,Edred Fitzpiers, Felice Charmond and Marty South.The topics of class,fidelity and loyalty are delt with in Hardys exquisite style and set in the beautiful woodlands of Hintock (T.Hynes)
No Name

Collins, Wilkie
The story begins in 1846, at Combe-Raven in West Somersetshire, the country residence of the happy Vanstone family. When Andrew Vanstone is killed suddenly in an accident and his wife follows shortly thereafter, it is revealed that they were not married at the time of their daughters' births, making their daughters "Nobody's Children" in the eyes of English law and robbing them of their inheritance. Andrew Vanstone's elder brother Michael gleefully takes possession of his brother's fortune, leaving his nieces to make their own way in the world. Norah, the elder sister, accepts her misfortune gracefully, but the headstrong Magdalen is determined to have her revenge. Using her dramatic talent and assisted by wily swindler Captain Wragge, Magdalen plots to regain her rightful inheritance.
Victory: An Island Tale

Conrad, Joseph
Recollections of the life of Axel Heyst, one-time manager of the liquidated Tropical Belt Coal Company in a fictitious island in the Pacific. After retreating from society in response to his professional failures, the misanthrope is drawn back by a romantic affair.
Doctor Thorne

Trollope, Anthony
Doctor Thorne is the third of Trollope's Barsetshire novels, and unlike some of the others, has little to do with the politics and personalities of the Church of England, or politics on the national level (though there is lots of politicking in the mythical county of Barsetshire itself). The plot revolves around the illegitimate Mary Thorne, who has been lovingly raised by her uncle, a country doctor, and who, as she comes of age, finds herself wondering whether she is a lady (in the county sense of the term). Frank Gresham, son of the squire of Greshamsbury, is in love with her (much against the wishes of his noble de Courcy relatives at the Castle), but she dismisses his affection at first as mere puppy love, thereby setting the scene for a series of entanglements, social, romantic, and of course, financial and propertied (never far from the action in Trollope's works). Their resolution, of course, makes up the meat of the novel. One critic has remarked that in Doctor Thorne Trollope succeeds in one of the most difficult tasks an author of fiction can face: how to make genuinely good people genuinely interesting, so that they engage not only the sympathies but also the interest of readers.
Past Days

Brontë, Anne
Volunteers bring you 12 recordings of Past Days by Emily Brontë . This was the Weekly Poetry project for November 28th, 2010
Anne Brontë was a British novelist and poet, the youngest member of the Brontë literary family. She wrote a volume of poetry with her sisters (Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, 1846) and in short succession she wrote two novels. Agnes Grey, based upon her experiences as a governess, was published in 1847. Her second and last novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall appeared in 1848. Anne's life was cut short with her death of pulmonary tuberculosis when she was 29 years old. She published under the androgynous pen name Acton Bell.
Please note, at the time of this poetry project, the Gutenburg index was mis-interpreted and this poem was mistakenly attributed to Emily Brontë / Ellis Bell. The recorded LibriVox introductions will reflect this mistake.
Appeal

Brontë, Anne
Volunteers bring you 24 recordings of Appeal by Anne Brontë. This was the Weekly Poetry project for February 5, 2012.
Appeal appears in 'Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell,' the first book ever published by the Bronte sisters. This book, a collection of poems by all the sisters, was first published in 1846 but did not sell at that time. After the sisters had made their names as novelists (and, sadly, after the deaths of Anne and Emily) a second edition was published in 1850 and became a commercial success.
In order to be taken seriously as poets and authors all three sisters adopted male pen names. Anne's particular pseudonym was Acton Bell.
Ten Years Later

Dumas, Alexandre
After The Three Muskateers and Twenty Years After the adventurous story of Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan continues!
The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later (French: Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou Dix ans plus tard) is the last of the Musketeer novels. It is usually divided into four volumes and this second volume contains chapters 76-140.
Geography and Plays

Stein, Gertrude
Geography and Plays is a 1922 collection of Gertrude Stein's "word portraits," or stream-of-consciousness writings. These stream-of-consciousness experiments, rhythmical essays or "portraits", were designed to evoke "the excitingness of pure being" and can be seen as literature's answer to Cubism, plasticity, and collage. Although the book has been described as "a marvellous and painstaking achievement in setting down approximately 80,000 words which mean nothing at all," it is considered to be one of Stein's seminal works.
Critias

Plato
This is an incomplete dialogue from the late period of Plato's life. Plato most likely created it after Republic and it contains the famous story of Atlantis, that Plato tells with such skill that many have believed the story to be true. Critias, a friend of Socrates, and uncle of Plato was infamous as one of the bloody thirty tyrants.
Grey Woman, The

Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
A "Bluebeard" story in which a young woman marries a man whom she discovers has killed his previous wives and is trying to kill her as well.
Phineas Finn the Irish Member

Trollope, Anthony
Phineas Finn is the sequel to "Can you Forgive Her?" and the second novel in Trollope's Palliser series. The eponymous hero is a young Irishman who becomes a member of the English parliament. Trollope aspired to become an M.P. himself, and he ably describes the workings of the English political scene. There is also a love interest, as the somewhat inconstant Phineas courts three different women: his Irish sweetheart, Mary Flood Jones; Lady Laura Standish, the daughter of a prominent Whig politician; and a lovely heiress, Violet Effingham.
Kenilworth

Scott, Walter, Sir
An Elizabethan era historical novel by Scotland's master of fiction, Sir Walter Scott. With a cast of historical and created characters, including the Queen herself, Scott presents the sad history and tragic consequences of the secretive marriage of young Amy Robsart and the Earl of Leicester.
Horse's Tale, A

Twain, Mark
Soldier Boy is the top steed at Fort Paxton. He is Buffalo Bill’s favorite horse and has led a life of glory and honor. One day General Alison’s orphaned niece arrives and proceeds to charm every man, woman, and beast for miles around including Soldier Boy. Buffalo Bill takes her under his wing and ultimately “lends” her Soldier Boy so that they may seek adventure together. And so they do. – “A Horse’s Tale” was first published in the August and September, 1906 issues of Harper’s Monthly magazine.
Trumpet Major, The

Hardy, Thomas
Our heroine, Anne Garland, lives quietly in a rural community deep in the English countryside. However, the arrival of several regiments preparing for an expected invasion brings colour and chaos to the county. A graceful and charming young woman, Anne is pursued by three suitors: John Loveday, the trumpet-major in a British regiment, honest and loyal; his brother Robert, a merchant seaman and womaniser, and Festus Derriman, the cowardly son of the local squire. Set at the time of the Napoleonic wars, this is the author's only historical novel, and unusually for Hardy's books, some of the characters live happily ever after.
Boule de Suif (version 2)

Maupassant, Guy de
Boule de Suif (1880) is a short story by the late-19th century French writer Guy de Maupassant. It is arguably his most famous short story, and is the title story for his collection on the Franco-Prussian War, entitled "Boule de Suif et Autres Contes de la Guerre" ("Boule de Suif and Other Stories of the War"). John Ford said that his film Stagecoach was in many ways a western rewrite of Boule de Suif.
Clarissa Harlowe Volume 2

Richardson, Samuel
Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady is an epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, published in 1748. It tells the tragic story of a heroine whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family, and is the longest real novel in the English language.
In Chancery (Forsyte Saga Vol. 2)

Galsworthy, John
'The Forsyte Saga' is the story of a wealthy London family stretching from the eighteen-eighties until the nineteen-twenties. In Chancery is the second book in the saga. Five years have passed since Irene left Soames and the death of Bosinney. Old Jolyon meets Irene and is enchanted by her. At his death he leaves her a legacy sufficient for her to live an independent life in Paris.
Soames who is desperate for a son, attempts to effect a rapprochement but is rejected by her. Meanwhile Young Jolyon, now a widower,who is Irene’s trustee falls in love with her.
Soames suspects Young Jolyon and Irene of adultery and sues for divorce. His action is successful. Young Jolyon and Irene marry. She bears him a son, John. Soames remarries. His wife Annette bears him a daughter, Fleur.
Brazilian Tales

Various
"Brazilian Tales" is a collection of six short stories selected by Isaac Goldberg as best representative of the Brazilian Literature of his period - the end of the 19th century. His comprehensive preface aims at familiarizing the reader with a literature that was - and still is - virtually unknown outside the boundaries of its own land, and the pieces chosen by Goldberg to be translated belong to writers that reached popularity and appreciation while still alive. This "pioneer volume", as the translator himself puts it, still keeps its charm and interest as a way of offering to the English speaking public some "sample cases" of Brazilian Literature.
Shadow of the Rope, The

Hornung, E. W.
Rachel Minchin stands in the dock, accused of murdering the dissolute husband she was preparing to leave. The trial is sensational, and public opinion vehemently and almost universally against her. When the jury astonishes and outrages the world with a vedict of Not Guilty, Rachel quickly finds herself in need of protection. It comes in the form of a surprising offer of marriage from a mysterious stranger who has sat through every day of her trial. The marriage to this intriguing stranger, Mr. Steel, is by mutual agreement to be a platonic one, the only condition of which is that neither is ever to question the other about the past. The two travel to Steel’s remote country estate, where Rachel accidentally discovers that her second husband’s past was somehow intertwined with her first husband’s history – but how, exactly, and why he determined to marry her, Steel will not say. As her doubts about her husband increase, local busybodies threaten to unearth Rachel’s own past. And that is the least of the secrets that comes to light as this entertaining mystery unfolds.
All Round the Year

Nesbit, E. (Edith)
A light and whimsical collection of poems by the celebrated children's author E Nesbit, in collaboration with Saretta Nesbit.
Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews, An (dramatic reading)

Fielding, Henry
An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews, or simply Shamela, as it is more commonly known, is a satirical novel written by Henry Fielding and first published in April 1741 under the name of Mr. Conny Keyber. Fielding never owned to writing the work, but it is widely considered to be his. It is a direct attack on the then-popular novel Pamela (November 1740) by Fielding's contemporary and rival Samuel Richardson and is composed, like Pamela, in epistolary form. Shamela is written as a shocking revelation of the true events which took place in the life of Pamela Andrews, the main heroine of Pamela. From Shamela we learn that, instead of being a kind, humble, and chaste servant-girl, Pamela (whose true name turns out to be Shamela) is in fact a wicked and lascivious creature, scheming to entrap her master, Squire Booby, into marriage.
Wit and Humor of America, The Vol 06

Various
The Wit and Humor of America is a 10 volume series. In this, the sixth volume, 55 short stories and poems have been gathered from 42 authors. This volume is sure to delight listeners.
Curious Republic of Gondour and Other Whimsical Sketches, The

Twain, Mark
As the title reveals, these stories are a collection of some of Mark Twain's more fanciful and eccentric works. They run the gamut from political commentary to our species' need to "be remembered" somehow. Taken as a whole the stories are "whimsical". Taken individually, they speak the truth in different ways.
Card, The

Bennett, Arnold
The ‘Card’ in question is Edward Henry Machin - His mother called him ‘Denry’. This light-hearted story is of his rise from humble beginnings as the son of a washerwoman and sempstress in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, in the pottery towns (which Arnold Bennett christened ‘The Five Towns’) of the English Midlands; how, by his own wits, enterprise and ‘nerve’ he rose to wealth, married bliss and public recognition as the youngest-ever mayor of his home town.
“’And yet,’ demanded Councillor Barlow, ‘what’s he done? What great cause is he identified with?’
‘He’s identified,’ said the speaker, ‘with the great cause of cheering us all up’.”
Boyhood

Tolstoy, Leo
Boyhood is the second in Tolstoy's trilogy of three autobiographical novels, including Childhood and Youth, published in a literary journal during the 1850s.
Sylvia's Lovers

Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
The novel begins in the 1790s in the coastal town of Monkshaven. Sylvia Robson lives with her parents on a farm, and is loved by her rather dull Quaker cousin Philip. She, however, meets and falls in love with Charlie Kinraid, a sailor on a whaling vessel, and they become engaged, although few people know of the engagement. But Charlie gets press-ganged and has to leave without a word...
Bunner Sisters

Wharton, Edith
“Bunner Sisters,” like “The Age of Innocence” is set in 1870s New York, however the lives of Ann Eliza and Evelina Bunner reflect impoverished New York. The sisters run a "very small shop, in a shabby basement, in a sidestreet already doomed to decline." Shabby as it is, the sisters are happy in their small orderly community of supportive women. The story tells of the destruction of this life, and how the once content sisters are thrown into the realistic world outside of their little shop.
Wit and Humor of America, The Vol 02

Various
The Wit and Humor of America is a 10 volume series. In this, the second volume, 44 short stories and poems have been gathered from 31 authors. This volume is sure to delight listeners.
Stories of King Arthur's Knights Told to the Children

MacGregor, Mary Esther Miller
A collection of Arthurian tales retold for children.
Daughter of the Land, A

Stratton-Porter, Gene
Independent Kate Bates resents the fact that, as the youngest of a large family, she is expected to stay at home and help her parents while her brothers and sisters are free to pursue their desires. When she defies her family and leaves home, she finds that the path to independence is paved with hardships.
Oscar Wilde: Art and Morality

Mason, Stuart
“Who can help laughing when an ordinary journalist seriously proposes to limit the subject-matter at the disposal of the artist?”
“We are dominated by journalism.... Journalism governs for ever and ever.”[/i]
One of the nastiest of the British tabloids was founded a year too late to join in the moral panic generated to accompany Oscar Wilde’s court appearances in 1895. Yet there was no shortage of hypocritical journalists posing as moral arbiters to the nation, then as now.
This compendium work - skilfully assembled by the editor, Stuart Mason - ends with transcript of Wilde’s first appearance in the Old Bailey, when he was cross-examined on the alleged immorality of his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. The disastrous outcome of these trials provides an ironic conclusion to the earlier knockabout exchanges between Oscar and his reviewers. In these he is at his flamboyant best, revelling in the publicity he pretends to disdain. His brave performances in the dock did nothing, however, to save him from hard labour, the treadmill and complete physical and moral breakdown which the law found it necessary to inflict on him.
In contrast to the hacks and lawyers, two refreshingly open-minded Americans write perceptively about the novel, as does Walter Pater, the grand old man of Aestheticism.
This solo Librivox project complements a new dramatised reading of The Picture of Dorian Gray, currently in preparation, featuring the present reader as Narrator.
To Have And To Hold

Johnston, Mary
When I first started reading this book, I thought it to be a historical romance novel. As I read further, I pondered whether it might be a sea-faring story. Reading still further, I determined it to be an adventure story. Alas, it is all three. To Have And To Hold, written by Mary Johnston was the bestselling novel of 1900. The story takes place in colonial Jamestown during the 1600
Pearl of Orr's Island, The

Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Go on a journey to the coast of Maine and immerse yourself in the picturesque community on Orr’s Island. See the raindrops glistening on the pine needles and hear the waves crashing on the rocks. This is a tale of romance, tragedy, crusty sea captains, an impetuous boy, a loving girl, complete with village gossips and twists in the plot.
What Diantha Did

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
Charlotte Perkins Gilman opens a window of history through which we can see a small part of the determined efforts made by women to elevate the circumstances of women in the early 20th century.Diantha Bell is a normal young woman desiring marriage and a home, but also a challenging career in a new territory which raises many eyebrows and sets malicious tongues wagging. Her effort to elevate housework and cooking to a regulated and even scientific business, for the relief of homemakers, is a depiction of the late 19th century movement to promote Domestic Science, or Home Economics, as a means of providing more healthful home life, as well as career paths for women.Diantha's business prospers as she shows her excellent gifts of administration, organization and homemaking. She grows an empire, and brings happiness and wholesomeness to every area of endeavor which she carefully attempts.The improvements in women's opportunities have not been available very long, indeed.This is a good reminder.
Sacred Fount, The

James, Henry
Published in 1901, The Sacred Fount delves into the interior observations and obsessions of one Englishman during a weekend gathering in the country. Regarding himself as a master of human psychology, the narrator watches the goings-on of the other guests and weaves theories about the interpersonal implications of what he witnesses, leaving the not infrequently perplexed reader the task of sorting out whether his conclusions are facts or fancies.
Room in the Dragon Volant, The

Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan
J. Sheridan LeFanu's Gothic mystery novel is narrated by Richard Beckett, a young Englishman abroad in Napoleonic-era France. He falls instantly in love with a mysterious and imperiled Countess, whom he glimpses momentarily behind her black veil. In order to be near her, he takes a room in the Dragon Volant (the Flying Dragon), a haunted inn that has been the site of mysterious disappearances.
Price of Love, The

Bennett, Arnold
Rachel Louise Fleckring works for the elderly Mrs Maldon, and although with the woman for only a short time, she is taken into the heart of the family. She falls in love with one of Mrs Maldon's descendents, but along the way, she has to come to terms with the fact that he isn't, perhaps, the perfectly honest man she thought he was.
Farewell

Balzac, Honoré de
In his startling and tragic novella Farewell (‘Adieu’), Balzac adds to the 19th century’s literature of the hysterical woman: sequestered, confined in her madness; mute, or eerily chanting in her moated grange. The first Mrs Rochester lurks in the wings; the Lady of Shalott waits for the shadowy reflection of the world outside to shatter her illusion. Freud’s earliest patients will soon enter the waiting-room in their turn.
Whilst out hunting two friends come across a strange waif-like woman shut up in a decaying chateau which one of them dubs “the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty”. Soon we are dragged back to the terrible masculine reality of the 1812 retreat of Napoleon’s army from Moscow and the grotesque massacre that was to traumatise the heroine, parting her from her lover.
Their reunion is more desperate still, as the earlier event is recreated in a bizarre and vain attempt to root out madness and compel the return of happiness…
To the Man of the High North

Service, Robert W.
Volunteers bring you 5 recordings of To the Man of the High North by Robert Service. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for November 28, 2010.
Robert William Service (January 16, 1874 – September 11, 1958) was a poet and writer, sometimes referred to as "the Bard of the Yukon".
His writing was so expressive that his readers took him for a hard-bitten old Klondike prospector, not the later-arriving bank clerk he actually was.
In addition to his Yukon works, Service also wrote poetry set in locales as diverse as South Africa, Afghanistan, and New Zealand.
Regent, The

Bennett, Arnold
'The Regent' is, if not a sequel to 'The Card', then a 'Further Adventures of' the eponymous hero of that novel.

Denry Machin is now forty-three and begins to feel that he is getting old, that making money and a happy home life are not enough and that he has lost his touch as the entrepreneur and entertainer of the 'Five Towns'.

In fact, as he says to himself 'What I want is change - and a lot of it too!'. A chance meeting at the local theatre leads to his going to London and then...
Hero and Leander (version 2)

Marlowe, Christopher
Two young people, the epitome of young masculine and feminine beauty, fall in love at first sight, but their union is forbidden by the tyranny of their guardians and of geography itself, for they live on opposite sides of the Hellespont. To enjoy one night of love, Leander dares to swim this formidable strait, unluckily meeting the god Neptune along the way. Unaware of the resentment he has aroused by rejecting the advances of this old queen of the sea, the lad gains the shore and, once past the shock of appearing naked on his lover's doorstep, finds his way into her bed. There the young couple, although ignorant of the facts of life (Hero is a "nun" in the temple of Venus!), discover "all that elder lovers know" by (awkward) trial and (hilarious) error. The unfinished poem ends with one lover having fallen out of bed, the long return journey across the Hellespont still to come and an angry Neptune lying in wait. Although George Chapman continued the poem after Marlowe's death, this reading is of Marlowe's original only.
Wit and Humor of America, The Vol 08

Various
The Wit and Humor of America is a 10 volume series. In this, the eighth volume, 40 short stories and poems have been gathered from 35 authors. This volume is sure to delight listeners.
Fruit of the Tree, The

Wharton, Edith
When published in 1907, this novel about the lives of a wealthy mill owner, her socially progressive husband and friends caused a stir due to its treatment of drug abuse, mercy killing, divorce and second marriages.
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