The unhappily married Lady Constantine breaks all the rules of social decorum when she falls in love with Swithin St. Cleeve, an astronomer who is ten years her junior. Her husband's death leaves the lovers free to marry, but the discovery of a legacy forces them apart.

Ken Campbell, Windsor Davies, John bird and John Fortune star in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation. When Alice's wish to visit the Looking Glass world comes true, she can't resist delving deeper and deeper into a land of caustic characters and twisted logic. So begins a game of chess on a grand scale, where the inhabitants of each square hav...

The aristocratic Anna Karenina is a sophisticated woman who seems to have everything - beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son. Yet she becomes increasingly aware of the emptiness of her life and exchanges her privilaged existence as the wife of Karenin for a passionate affair with the impetuous Count Vronsky - with tragic consequences.

Published to great acclaim in 1929, this classic and bestselling tale did away with sentimental Victorian visions of childhood and paved the way for later works such as Golding's 'Lord of the Flies'. Set in the last century against a tropical landscape and the ever-present sea, this audiobook tells the story of a family of English children who, on...

Elizabeth Bennet is a spirited young woman with four sisters and a mother obsessed with getting them all married off. When she first meets Fitzwilliam Darcy she thinks he's arrogant and conceited, and he is completely indifferent to her charms. Will they ever see past the prejudices of their first impressions?

Walden (first published as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) is an American book written by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self-reliance. First published...

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'...

Eerie classic by Edgar Wallace - George Thomas, a criminal, meets a stranger by night, who persuades him to let his violent urges against his wife run their course.

Edgar Allan Poe's well known classic: the story of a vicious plague and a prince's attempts to remove himself and his friends from the horrors affecting the masses. Gothic literature at its very finest.

The timeless and enchanting festive story of Scrooge, who declares Christmas 'Humbug' and is taught otherwise. Ebenezer Scrooge is a money-grabbing skinflint who makes his own life and the lives of those around him nigh-unbearable with his mean and economical ways. One night just before Christmas, tucked up in his cold bed, he is shocked to meet ap...

Lucy Honeychurch, accompanied by her vigilant guardian, Charlotte Bartlett, makes her first foray into the world, touring Italy and discovering a country very different to the English countryside she was brought up in. Torn between two lovers, she has to make a decision that will transform her from a girl to a woman. A talented pianist with a good...

Adela Quested travels to India with her chaperone Mrs Moore, on the premise of deciding whether to marry Mrs Moore's son Ronny Heaslop, the city magistrate. Finding her India very disappointingly English, Adela jumps at the chance the two women are given to travel to the distant Marabar caves with Aziz, a charismatic young Indian Doctor. When Adela...

A full-cast dramatisation of Kipling's classic animal adventure starring Eartha Kitt. Rudyard Kipling's famous tale tells the story of Mowgli, the 'man-cub' rescued from the tiger Shere Khan and adopted by a wolf pack. As he grows up, Mowgli learns the ways of the jungle from Baloo the bear, Bagheera the black panther and Kaa the rock python. His l...

Narrated in the first person, Great Expectations tells the story of Philip Pirrip (known as Pip) from his disadvantaged start as an orphan in the Kent marshes to the improvement in his position following an anonymous allowance. Pip moves to London where, only after many trials, does he learn humility and the value of loyalty. Key Dickens characters...

Howards End is a novel by E. M. Forster which tells a story of social and familial relations in turn-of-the-century England. The main subject matter comprises the difficulties and benefits of relationships between people of divergent outlook, gender, or class; a further concern of the book is the need to accept and link multiple outlooks on the wor...

This story is both shocking and absorbing, a vivid evocation of the dynamics within relationships between husbands and wives, which are not always happy, and can be violent. An apocalyptic masterpiece, Women in Love was originally refused publication for four years after completion due to its strong content. Describing violent relationships, animal...

Based on the epic novel by Nobel Laureate John Steinbeck. Set during the Great Depression, The Grapes of Wrath tells the powerful story of the Joad family's trek from the dust bowl of Oklahoma to the promise of a new life in California. But what they find threatens to rip apart their lives, and sever the ties that bind them together. Starring Shirl...

Perhaps the most brilliantly successful ghost story ever written, The Turn of the Screw creates a terrifyingly believable impression of innocent children so corrupted by evil that they remain deceptive pictures of innocent beauty. Their governess must struggle alone to confront and exorcise the demons which she believes possess their souls...

On the eve of his marriage to the beautiful Mercedes, having that very day been made Captain of his ship, the young sailor Edmond DantŠs is arrested on a charge of treason, trumped up by jealous rivals. Incarcerated for many lonely years in the isolated and terrifying Chateau d'If near Marseille, he meticulously plans his brilliant escape an...

A plane crashes on a desert island and the only survivors, a group of schoolboys, assemble on the beach and wait to be rescued. By day they inhabit a land of bright fantastic birds and dark blue seas, but at night their dreams are haunted by the image of a terrifying beast. As the boys' delicate sense of order fades, so their childish dreams are tr...

'The Waves', more than any of Virginia Woolf's other novels, conveys the complexities of human experience. Tracing the lives of a group of friends, 'The Waves' follows their development from childhood to youth and middle age. The novel is most remarkable for the rich poetic language that conveys the aspirations, triumphs and regrets of her characte...