AuthorOscar Wilde
NarratorSimon Callow
Duration2h 11m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Classics
PublisherHachette Audio
VersionUnabridged
A stunning new reading of Oscar Wilde's De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol. One of the most famous and successful writers of his day, Oscar Wilde was celebrated as much for his flamboyant personality and his prodigious wit as for his provocative essays, touching fairy stories and satirical plays. But in May of 1895, shortly after the premiere of his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest, he was sentenced to two years' hard labour for gross indecency after a trial that scandalised Britain, sending shock waves around the world, traumatising homosexuals everywhere and leading, in Britain, to 75 years of oppression of gay men. In this brand-new recording, actor, author and director Simon Callow brings his lifelong love of Wilde's work to the fore in these unmissable readings. Fresh from performing a stage production of De Profundis in London and Edinburgh, Callow brings the same energy and passion to this electric performance.
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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Author: Oscar Wilde
Author Oscar Wilde
Narrator Rupert Graves
Duration 2h 52m
Haunting and poignant, the great Oscar Wilde's famous supernatural story of youth and age is narrated brilliantly by Rupert Graves. Wilde's only novel combines sparkling wit, social satire and luxurious description. Full of many of his most famous witticisms, it is essentially a novel about the lust for eternal youth versus the inevitable reality o...
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Author: Oscar Wilde
Author Oscar Wilde
Narrator T P Mckenna
Duration 14m
Worthy but penniless Hughey Erskine is horrified by his painter friend's heartless attitude to the tramp posing for a portrait. Hughey gives the tramp money, only to learn there has been a mixup which may set Hughey back further from marrying his adoring fianc‚e.
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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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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: 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: Oscar Wilde
Author Oscar Wilde
Narrator Greg Wise
Duration 9h 15m
After meeting Lord Henry Wotton, who remarks that 'youth is the only thing worth having', Dorian Gray becomes obsessed with preserving his looks. He wants to remain as youthful and fresh as he appears in his recently completed portrait by Basil Hallward. When Dorian states that he would give his soul to stay young, he has no idea of the horrors he'...
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Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Author Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Narrator Richard E. Grant
Duration 2h 12m
He is the Little Prince, the mysterious, innocent and beautiful boy who appears to a pilot stranded in the desert and makes an extraordinary request. He has captured the hearts of millions of readers around the world since his story first appeared in 1943, written down by an aristocratic French aviator who soon after disappeared during a flight acr...
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Author: Charlotte Bronte
Author Charlotte Bronte
Narrator Charlotte Ritchie
Duration 21h 29m
Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Charlotte Ritchie, best known for her roles as Oregon in Channel 4's Fresh Meat, Hannah in the BBC Three comedy Siblings, and as Barbara Gilbert in BBC drama Call the Midwife. With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding sch...
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Author: Oscar Wilde
Author Oscar Wilde
Narrator Simon Russell Beale
Duration 4h 54m
Written during his time in Reading Gaol, De Profundis is Oscar Wilde's moving letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, whose relationship with Wilde led to the poet's imprisonment. Here Wilde repudiates Lord Alfred and reflects on his ordeal, acknowledging how the depths of his sorrow have helped liberate him towards a fuller, freer wisdom. Brimming with bea...
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