- The most popular
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Marriage of Heaven and Hell (version 2)
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."
The Marriage of Heaven & Hell is William Blake’s masterpiece – a piously blasphemous reimagining of the duality of good and evil as an eternal dance of equally essential polarities.
Good, in Blake’s complex cosmology, is defined by a blind deference to the external, rational order embodied by the tyrant and the priest. Evil is the chaotic and revolutionary impulse that defies all reason and authority.
While Blake’s sympathies are clearly with the Romantic revolutionary, he argues for the necessity of both sides, which create balance through their eternal opposition. -
Little Princess, A (version 2)
Sara is brought to Miss Minchin's Select Seminary for Young Ladies by her father, Captain Crewe, because the climate in India doesn't agree with children. After several years as Miss Minchin's show pupil, news comes that Captain Crewe has died penniless, and left Sara destitute. Miss Minchin keeps her on as an unpaid drudge, until a mysterious benefactor comes to her aid. -
Little Princess, A
The novel tells of the troubles of a wealthy young girl, Sara Crewe, who is sent to an oppressive London boarding school during her father’s campaign in India. Thanks to Capt. Crewe’s money, Sara is treated as a little princess until, one day, word comes of her father’s tragic death. Miss Minchin, the school’s greedy headmistress, wastes no time in putting the now-penniless Sara to work for her room and board. It is only through the friendship of two other girls, her own resolute nature, and some astonishing luck that Sara eventually finds her way back to happiness. -
Little Princess (Version 3)
A Little Princess is a classic of children's literature by the author of The Secret Garden. Seven-year-old Sara Crewe comes to London to attend Miss Minchin's Select Seminary for Young Ladies, where she must live apart from her adored father. Sara is a bright and imaginative child who is both loved (for her friendliness) and hated (for her father's wealth) at Miss Minchin's. When Sara receives some terrible news on her eleventh birthday, her life changes forever. -
Faust I
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust is a tragic play in two parts. It is Goethe's most famous work and considered by many to be one of the greatest works of German literature.
This first part of Faust is not divided into acts, but is structured as a sequence of scenes in a variety of settings. After a dedicatory poem and a prelude in the theatre, the actual plot begins with a prologue in Heaven and Scene 1 in Faust's study. -
Return of Sherlock Holmes, The
Having left Sherlock Holmes apparently deceased at the conclusion of The Final Problem (in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes), we now find that he is alive after all! In this collection, first published in 1905, the great detective causes Watson to faint (The Empty House), demonstrates that cryptography is elementary (The Dancing Men), and gets engaged (Charles Augustus Milverton). Join in the fun as Holmes deduces his way through these thirteen adventures. -
Castled Crag of Drachenfels
Volunteers bring you 12 recordings of The Castled Crag of Drachenfels, by George Gordon, Lord Byron.
This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for September 5, 2021.
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The Castled Crag at Drachenfels is a 4-verse poem embedded in Canto 3 of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron. It is thought to be addressed to his half-sister Augusta Leigh, by whom he was believed to have fathered a child.The Drachenfels crag overlooks the town of Kornigswinter on the river Rhine in Germany, just south of Bonn. -
Bee
Volunteers bring you 31 recordings of The Bee by Emily Dickinson.
This was the Weekly Poetry project for March 14, 2021.
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Little known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. After Dickinson's death, her younger sister, Lavinia, discovered her cache of nearly 1800 poems, her work became public. -
Lonely House
Volunteers bring you 21 recordings of The Lonely House by Emily Dickinson.
This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for October 11, 2020.
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The Lonely House seems a good prelude to Halloween. -
Sleep Is Supposed To Be
Volunteers bring you 26 recordings of Sleep Is Supposed To Be by Emily Dickinson.
This was the Weekly Poetry project for May 31, 2020.
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A description of sleep according to Emily Dickinson. -
Thunder-Storm
Volunteers bring you 15 recordings of A Thunder-Storm by Emily Dickinson.
This was the Weekly Poetry project for October 6, 2019. -
Grass
Volunteers bring you 17 recordings of The Grass by Emily Dickinson.
This was the Weekly Poetry project for August 4, 2019.
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The verses of Emily Dickinson belong emphatically to what Emerson long since called "the Poetry of the Portfolio,"—something produced absolutely without the thought of publication, and solely by way of expression of the writer's own mind. (from The Preface to POEMS by EMILY DICKINSON) -
Mother Nature (Dickinson)
Volunteers bring you 8 recordings of Mother Nature by Emily Dickinson. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for June 3, 2013
While Emily Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends.
Mother Nature is a wonderful poem by Dickinson about nature. -
Hope
readers bring you 16 versions of Hope, by Emily Dickinson. This was the weekly poetry selection for the week of November 18, 2013. -
Troubled About Many Things
The verses of Emily Dickinson belong emphatically to what Emerson long since called "the Poetry of the Portfolio,"—something produced absolutely without the thought of publication, and solely by way of expression of the writer's own mind. A recluse by temperament and habit, literally spending years without setting her foot beyond the doorstep, and many more years during which her walks were strictly limited to her father's grounds, she habitually concealed her mind, like her person, from all but a very few friends; and it was with great difficulty that she was persuaded to print, during her lifetime, three or four poems. Yet she wrote verses in great abundance. (from the Introduction to Poems: Three Series, Complete, by Emily Dickinson) -
If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking
Volunteers bring you 12 recordings of If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking by Emily Dickinson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for June 27th, 2010. -
Lovers, The
Volunteers bring you 27 recordings of The Lovers by Emily Dickinson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for May 27, 2012.
The verses of Emily Dickinson belong emphatically to what Emerson long since called "the Poetry of the Portfolio,"—something produced absolutely without the thought of publication, and solely by way of expression of the writer's own mind. Such verse must inevitably forfeit whatever advantage lies in the discipline of public criticism and the enforced conformity to accepted ways. On the other hand, it may often gain something through the habit of freedom and the unconventional utterance of daring thoughts. In the case of the present author, there was absolutely no choice in the matter; she must write thus, or not at all. A recluse by temperament and habit, literally spending years without setting her foot beyond the doorstep, and many more years during which her walks were strictly limited to her father's grounds, she habitually concealed her mind, like her person, from all but a very few friends; and it was with great difficulty that she was persuaded to print, during her lifetime, three or four poems. Yet she wrote verses in great abundance; and though brought curiously indifferent to all conventional rules, had yet a rigorous literary standard of her own, and often altered a word many times to suit an ear which had its own tenacious fastidiousness. -
Railway Train
Volunteers bring you 16 recordings of The Railway Train by Emily Dickinson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for May 28, 2011.
Although Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends. -
Life: Poem XXI A Book
Poem XXI: "A Book", read by the wonderful podcasters at the Podcasters Across Borders 2006 conference, in Kingston, Ontario, June 23-24, 2006. -
Pickwick Papers, The
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, better known as The Pickwick Papers, is the first novel by Charles Dickens. Written for publication as a serial, The Pickwick Papers consists of a sequence of loosely-related adventures. Its main literary value and appeal is formed by its numerous unforgettable heroes. Each personage in The Pickwick Papers (just as in many other Dickens' novels) is drawn comically, often with exaggerated features of character. -
Pickwick Papers, The Version 2
A sportsman who doesn't hunt; a poet who doesn't write; a lover with no one to love; all three are devoted to their cheerful and benevolent leader, Mr. Pickwick. Join him and his friends, Winkle, Snodgrass, and Tupman, as they tour the country in search of adventures, knowledge, and stories. Along the way, they have their share of mishaps, and meet plenty of interesting characters, both the good and the not so good. (Mr. Pickwick's dedicated manservant, Sam Weller, is a scene-stealer sure to delight just about everybody.) -
Pickwick Papers (version 3)
Mr Pickwick, founder of the Pickwick Club, sets out with his three friends, Tupman, Snodgrass, and Winkle, to observe the world. They intend to travel to places in England remote from London, and observe their findings which they send back to the Club. In their journeys, they continually get themselves into all sorts of difficult but comical situations, from which they must extricate themselves, often with the assistance of Mr Pickwick's personal servant, Sam Weller. -
Adventures of Pinocchio, The, Version 2
Do today's children still learn what a "marionette" is? The beloved story of Pinocchio may represent a last lingering picture of a world not dominated by plastic or electronic toys.
Pinocchio is a puppet made from a piece of wood that curiously could talk even before being carved. A wooden-head he starts and a wooden-head he stays - until after years of misadventures caused by his laziness and failure to keep promises he finally learns to care about his family - and then he becomes a real boy. -
Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, The, Vol. 3
This is volume 3 of 4.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (or, more briefly, Tristram Shandy) is a novel by Laurence Sterne. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others following over the next 10 years. It was not always held in high esteem by other writers (Samuel Johnson responded that, "Nothing odd can last"), but its bawdy humour was popular with London society, and it has come to be seen as one of the greatest comic novels in English, as well as a forerunner for many modern narrative devices. -
Adventures of Pinocchio, The
The Adventures of Pinocchio is a novel for children by Italian author Carlo Collodi (here transl. by Carol della Chiesa). The first half was published in serial form between 1881 and 1883, and then completed as a book for children in February 1883. It is about the mischievous adventures of Pinocchio, an animated marionette, and his poor father, a woodcarver named Geppetto. It is considered a classic of children’s literature and has spawned many derivative works of art, such as Disney’s classic 1940 animated movie of the same name, and commonplace ideas, such as a liar’s long nose. -
Iliad, The
The Iliad, together with the Odyssey, is one of two ancient Greek epic poems traditionally attributed to Homer. The poem is commonly dated to the 8th or 7th century BC, and many scholars believe it is the oldest extant work of literature in the Greek language, making it the first work of European literature. The existence of a single author for the poems is disputed as the poems themselves show evidence of a long oral tradition and hence, multiple authors. The poem concerns events during the tenth and final year in the siege of the city of Iliun, or Troy, by the Greeks. -
Black Beauty (version 3 Dramatic Reading)
Black Beauty is a fictional autobiographical memoir told by a horse, who recounts many tales, both of cruelty and kindness. The title page of the first edition states that it was "Translated from the Original Equine by Anna Sewell." After its publication in 1877, Sewell lived just long enough to see her first and only novel become an immediate bestseller, as well as it encouraging the better treatment of many cruelly-treated animals.
Although initially intended for people who work with horses, it soon became a children's classic. While outwardly teaching animal welfare, it also contains allegorical lessons about how to treat people with kindness, sympathy and respect. The story is narrated in the first person and each short chapter relates an incident in Black Beauty's life, with Sewell's detailed observations and extensive descriptions of horse behaviour lending the novel a good deal of verisimilitude. -
Black Beauty (version 2)
Black Beauty is a fictional autobiographical memoir told by a horse, who recounts many tales, both of cruelty and kindness. The title page of the first edition states that it was "Translated from the Original Equine by Anna Sewell." It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she was confined to her house as an invalid. After its publication in 1877, Sewell lived just long enough to see her first and only novel become an immediate bestseller, as well as it encouraging the better treatment of many cruelly-treated animals.
Although initially intended for people who work with horses, it soon became a children's classic. While outwardly teaching animal welfare, it also contains allegorical lessons about how to treat people with kindness, sympathy and respect. The story is narrated in the first person and each short chapter relates an incident in Black Beauty's life, with Sewell's detailed observations and extensive descriptions of horse behaviour lending the novel a good deal of verisimilitude. -
Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse
Black Beauty is Anna Sewell’s first and only novel. The story is told in the “first person” (or first horse) as an autobiographical memoir of a highbred horse named Black Beauty, from his carefree days as a foal on an English farm, to his difficult life pulling cabs in London, to his happy retirement in the country. Along the way, he meets with many hardships and recounts many tales of cruelty and kindness. Each short chapter recounts an incident in Black Beauty’s life containing a lesson or moral typically related to the kindness, sympathy, and understanding treatment of horses. -
North and South (version 2)
North and South is a social novel that tries to show the industrial North and its conflicts in the mid-19th century as seen by an outsider, a socially sensitive lady from the South. The story: the heroine, Margaret Hale, is the daughter of a Nonconformist minister who moves to the fictional industrial town of Milton after leaving the Church of England. The town is modeled after Manchester, where Gaskell lived as the wife of a Unitarian minister. The change of lifestyle shocks Margaret, who sympathizes deeply with the poverty of the workers and comes into conflict with John Thornton, the owner of a local mill, also a friend of her father. After an encounter with a group of strikers, in which Margaret attempts to protect Thornton from the violence, he proposes to her, telling her that he is in love with her; she rejects his proposal of marriage, mainly because she sees it as if it were out of obligation for what she had done. Later, he sees her with her fugitive brother, whom he mistakes for another suitor, and this creates further unresolved conflict. Margaret, once she believes she has lost his affection, begins to see him in another light, and eventually they are reunited. -
North and South
Set in Victorian England, North and South is the story of Margaret Hale, a young woman whose life is turned upside down when her family relocates to northern England. As an outsider from the agricultural south, Margaret is initially shocked by the aggressive northerners of the dirty, smoky industrial town of Milton. But as she adapts to her new home, she defies social conventions with her ready sympathy and defense of the working poor. Her passionate advocacy leads her to repeatedly clash with charismatic mill owner John Thornton over his treatment of his workers. While Margaret denies her growing attraction to him, Thornton agonizes over his foolish passion for her, in spite of their heated disagreements. As tensions mount between them, a violent unionization strike explodes in Milton, leaving everyone to deal with the aftermath in the town and in their personal lives.
Elizabeth Gaskell serialized North and South between September 1854 and January 1855 in Charles Dickens’s magazine Household Words. Upon its publication, Gaskell established herself as a novelist capable of serious discourse on social responsibility and advocacy for change in defiance of established authority. -
North and South (version 3)
North and South is set in the fictional industrial town of Milton in the North of England. Forced to leave her home in the tranquil rural south, Margaret Hale settles with her parents in Milton where she witnesses the brutal world wrought by the industrial revolution and employers and workers clashing in the first organized strikes. Sympathetic to the poor whose courage and tenacity she admires and among whom she makes friends, she clashes with John Thornton, a cotton mill manufacturer who belongs to the nouveaux riches and whose contemptuous attitude to workers Margaret despises. -
Railway Children (version 3)
When their father mysteriously goes away, three children and their story-writing mother leave their comfortable life in London and move to a little house, Three Chimneys, in the country. Free to roam the countryside, Peter, Bobbie, and Phil make friends and enjoy adventures in and around the nearby railway station, and wave to the passing train each day, asking it to send their love to Father. There areno magical adventures in this Nesbit story, but as usual her child characters are so realistic that you feel they are your friends! -
Railway Children (version 2 Dramatic Reading)
Roberta, Peter and Phyllis are suddenly yanked out of their comfortable lives and removed to live in the country with only their mother and to "play at being poor". Will they ever again be allowed to have bread with butter AND jam? Why does mother spend all day frantically writing in her room? And what has happened to their father?
The Railway Children is one of Edith Nesbit's best-loved books. It has been made into five films and a musical. The story of three children making friends with everyone around them and doing their best to do good and to be good (but not always succeeding) contains no magic, but the warmth of Nesbit's storytelling permeates the book. -
Railway Children, The
Edith Nesbit’s classic story, in which three children, pulled suddenly from their comfortable suburban life, move to the country with their mother, where they come to know and love the ways of the railways. -
Princess of Mars (Version 4)
A Confederate soldier travels to Mars and is embroiled in its politics and wars, becoming a great swordsman and hero. -
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. -
Princess of Mars, A (solo)
John Carter, an American Civil War veteran, goes prospecting in Arizona and, when set upon by Indians, is mysteriously transported to Mars, called "Barsoom" by its inhabitants. Carter finds that he has great strength on this planet, due to its lesser gravity. Carter soon falls in among the Tharks, a nomadic tribe of the planet's warlike, four-armed, green inhabitants. Thanks to his strength and combat abilities he rises in position in the tribe and earns the respect eventually the friendship of Tars Tarkas one of the Thark chiefs.
The Tharks subsequently capture Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, a member of the humanoid red Martian race. The red Martians inhabit a loose network of city states and control the desert planet's canals, along which its agriculture is concentrated. Carter rescues her from the green men to return her to her people. -
Princess of Mars, A
Part One of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars-Series. Easy, swank, pulp read about an omnipotent gentleman teleported to Mars, finding an outlandish society of ape-, tree- and lizardmen, red-, white-, yellowmen, brains on legs, strange bastions and curious apparatuses, where the strongest survives and women are needy beauties to be saved. How can something be so platitudinous and at the same time so imaginative and enthralling? Boys’ book for sure. -
Island of Doctor Moreau (Version 2)
In this classic of H. G. Wells, Edward Prendick is shipwrecked on a beautiful island in the South Seas and is drawn into the wild and cruel world of Doctor Moreau, who aspires to play God with animals -
Island of Doctor Moreau (Version 3)
In 1896 HG Wells produced the Island of Doctor Moreau. After a fateful shipwreck, a chance rescue, and offer of safe harbor, Edward Prendick must contend with a dark science. A man of science, Prendick must wrestle with the ethics of its passions. His inner struggle is illuminated by the island's outward horrors. Central to the themes are ethics, principles, and the extent of human compassion. This science fiction icon argues the true question of science: Could the cure be more dangerous than the disease? -
Island of Dr. Moreau, The
The Island of Doctor Moreau is an 1896 science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells, addressing ideas of society and community, human nature and identity, religion, Darwinism, and eugenics.
When the novel was written in the late 19th century, England's scientific community was engulfed by debates on animal vivisection. Interest groups were even formed to tackle the issue: the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection was formed two years after the publication of the novel. -
Wonderful Wizard of Oz (version 7)
"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to pleasure children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out -
Lost World, The (version 2)
Imagine a strange, tropical place that is almost inaccessible. Time appears to have stood still there. Species of animal and plant life not seen elsewhere on Earth, except in the fossil record, inhabit the place. The lakes heave with the shapes of huge grey bulks moving under the surface. The woods are places where chittering cries move about above your head, as powerful apes move swiftly in the canopy of leaves. Then, a tree splinters nearby, and a dinosaur steps out from his hiding place... and he's eyeing YOU.
Jurassic Park? Not quite. The Lost World was an inspiration for Jurassic Park; in fact, a character in J.P. has the same name as one of the chief characters in The Lost World. It also inspired King Kong. But this is the original! Four adventurers go off to find the place shown in a dead man's sketch book - they find a war between apes and Indians, prowling dinosaurs, a sparkly treasure hidden in the blue clay - they find the Lost World. And because of the treachery of a native guide, their means of escape is destroyed! -
Lost World, The
The Lost World is a 1912 novel by Arthur Conan Doyle concerning an expedition to a plateau (native name is Tepuyes) in South America (Venezuela) where prehistoric animals (dinosaurs and other extinct creatures) still survive. The character of Professor Challenger was introduced in this book. Interestingly, for a seminal work of dinosaur-related fiction, the reptiles only occupy a small portion of the narrative. Much more time is devoted to a war between early human hominids and a vicious tribe of ape-like creatures. -
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (Version 3)
"That government is best which governs least" is the famous opening line of this essay. The slavery crisis inflamed New England in the 1840s and 1850s. The environment became especially tense after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. A lifelong abolitionist, Thoreau delivered an impassioned speech which would later become Civil Disobedience in 1848, just months after leaving Walden Pond. The speech dealt with slavery, but at the same time excoriated American imperialism, particularly the Mexican–American War. Thoreau asserts that because governments are typically more harmful than helpful, they therefore cannot be justified. Democracy is no cure for this, as majorities simply by virtue of being majorities do not also gain the virtues of wisdom and justice. The judgment of an individual's conscience is not necessarily inferior to the decisions of a political body or majority, and so "[i]t is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.... Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice." He adds, "I cannot for an instant recognize as my government [that] which is the slave's government also." from Wikipedia -
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience Version 2
ivil Disobedience (Resistance to Civil Government) is an essay by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849. In it, Thoreau argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican–American War. -
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
Civil Disobedience is an essay by Henry David Thoreau. Published in 1849 under the title Resistance to Civil Government, it expressed Thoreau’s belief that people should not allow governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that people have a duty both to avoid doing injustice directly and to avoid allowing their acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican-American War. -
Utopia
This book is all about the fictional country called Utopia. It is a country with an ‘ideal’ form of communism, in which everything really does belong to everybody, everyone does the work they want to, and everyone is alright with that. This country uses gold for chamber pots and prison chains, pearls and diamonds for children’s playthings, and requires that a man and a woman see each other exactly as they are, naked, before getting married. This book gave the word 'utopia' the meaning of a perfect society, while the Greek word actually means ‘no place’. Enjoy listening to this story about a country that really is too good to be true. -
Wind in the Willows (version 5)
A children's classic, this is the story of Rat and Mole, who have many adventures both on and off their beloved river, with their friends Toad and Badger. This version has been read in a whisper and is perfect for night-time listening in a quiet room. The low volume is intentional!