AuthorDaphne Du Maurier
NarratorHarriet Walter
Duration3h 7m
CategoriesClassics, LGBTQ+ Literature, Adult Fiction
PublisherBBC
VersionUnabridged
'There was Manderley, our Manderley, secretive and silent as it had always been...Time itself could not wreck the perfect symmetry of those walls, nor the site itself, a jewel in the hollow of a hand.'
When Maxim de Winter brings his shy new bride to his beautiful stately home on the Cornwall coast, it seems like all her dreams have come true. The terrace slopes to the lawns, the lawns stretch to the sea, and the gardens are full of scented flowers.
But she soon finds that Manderley is haunted by the shadow of Maxim's first wife, Rebecca, who died the year before. It was Rebecca who made the house and gardens the showpiece of the county and her memory is revered by all, especially the housekeeper Mrs Danvers.
As the hot summer fades, the mystery of Rebecca's death grows, weaving a spell of fear and foreboding. In a series of climactic revelations, Rebecca's memory is finally laid to rest.... but at what cost?
Author: Daphne Du Maurier
Author Daphne Du Maurier
Narrator Sarah Robson
Duration 10h 30m
After the death of her mother, Mary Yellan travels to Jamaica Inn on bleak Bodmin Moor to live with her Aunt Patience. The coachman warns her of the strange happenings there, and Mary suddenly finds her life to be in the hands of strangers: her uncle, Joss Merlyn, whose crude ways repel her; Aunt Patience, who seems mentally unstable and perpetuall...
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Author: Daphne Du Maurier
Author Daphne Du Maurier
Narrator Various
Duration 56m
Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Daphne du Maurier's classic tale of horror. The idea for this famous story came to du Maurier one day when she was walking across to Menabilly Barton farm from the house. She saw a farmer busily ploughing a field whilst above him the seagulls were diving and wheeling. She developed an idea about the birds becoming...
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Author: Emile Zola
Author Emile Zola
Narrator Traci Svensgaard
Duration 6h 41m
In a dingy apartment on the Passage du Pont-Neuf in Paris, Th‚rŠse Raquin is trapped in a loveless marriage to her sickly cousin, Camille. The numbing tedium of her life is suddenly shattered when she embarks on a turbulent affair with her husband's earthy friend, Laurent. But their passion for each other soon compels the lovers to commit a crime t...
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Author: Charles Dickens
Author Charles Dickens
Narrator Simon Vance
Duration 31h 21m
The most gorgeously theatrical of all Dickens's novels, Nicholas Nickleby follows the delightful adventures of a hearty young hero in nineteenth-century England. Nicholas, a gentleman's son fallen upon hard times, must set out to make his way in the world. His journey is accompanied by some of the most swaggering scoundrels and unforgettable eccent...
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Karen Pirie Book 5: Broken Ground
Author: Val Mcdermid
Author Val Mcdermid
Narrator Cathleen Mccarron
SeriesKaren Pirie, Book 5
Duration 12h 57m
When a body is discovered in the remote depths of the Highlands, DCI Karen Pirie finds herself in the right place at the right time. Unearthed with someone's long-buried inheritance, the victim seems to belong to the distant past - until new evidence suggests otherwise, and Karen is called in to unravel a case where nothing is as it seems. It's not...
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Author: Kenneth Grahame
Author Kenneth Grahame
Narrator Alan Bennett
Duration 1h 17m
When the Water Rat invites the unassuming Mole to spend his first day ever in a boat on the river, and wise Badger comes along for the ride as well, so begins a marvellous season of adventure for the three friends. Mr Toad (he of Toad Hall) completes a happy foursome, but his tendency to get into hot water leads him into some rather hair-raising sc...
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Author: Emile Zola
Author Emile Zola
Narrator Leighton Pugh
Duration 19h 55m
Germinal is one of the most striking novels in the French tradition. Widely regarded as Zola's masterpiece, the novel describes the working conditions of French coalminers in the 1860s in harsh and realistic terms it is visceral, graphic and unrelenting. Its strong socialist principles and vivid accounts of the miners' strikes meant that the novel...
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Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Book 9: Splinter the Silence
Author: Val Mcdermid
Author Val Mcdermid
Narrator Saul Reichlin
SeriesTony Hill and Carol Jordan, Book 9
Duration 12h 47m
When psychological profiler Tony Hill comes across a series of suicides among women tormented by vicious online predators, he begins to wonder if there is more to these tragedies than meets the eye. Could it be murder? But what kind of serial killer wants his crimes to stay hidden? Tony and DCI Carol Jordan begin the hunt for the most dangerous and...
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Author: Albert Camus
Author Albert Camus
Narrator James Jenner
Duration 11h 2m
In the small coastal city of Oran, Algeria, rats begin rising up from the filth only to die as bloody heaps in the streets. Shortly after, an outbreak of the bubonic plague erupts and envelops the human population. Albert Camus' The Plague is a brilliant and haunting rendering of human perseverance and futility in the face of a relentless terror bo...
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Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Book 11: How the Dead Speak
Author: Val Mcdermid
Author Val Mcdermid
Narrator Saul Reichlin
SeriesTony Hill and Carol Jordan, Book 11
Duration 12h 16m
After an explosive case that forced Tony Hill and Carol Jordan to reassess everything they thought they knew about right and wrong, both are dealing with the fallout in their own separate ways. While Tony must pay the price for his actions, Carol is conducting investigations into suspected miscarriages of justice. But when a shocking discovery is m...
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