Showing results by narrator "Georgina Sutton" in All Categories

Shocked and distressed by a male writer's vilification of women, Christine de Pizan has a powerful dreamlike vision in which she is visited by three personified Virtues: Reason, Rectitude and Justice. They tell her she has been chosen to write a book which will be like a city, housing virtuous women and protecting them from feminist attack. Partly myth, partly fact, The Book of the City of Ladies is an extraordinary, pioneering and impassioned defense of women that set out to shatter misogynist cliches and serve to instill self-worth in its female listeners of the time.

Between the Acts, Virginia Woolf’s last novel, was finished in November 1940 and shortly afterwards delivered to her publisher Hogarth Press. The following March she committed suicide. Between the Acts is often an overlooked work in her oeuvre because she did express her intention to revise it...

The Provincial Lady in Wartime, though the last of the Provincial Lady series, is one of the finest. No further ‘Diaries’ had appeared since The Provincial Lady in America (published in 1934) when, in 1939, Harold Macmillan, then chairman of Macmillan publishers and a fan, made a personal...

No one could have been more surprised than our Provincial Lady to receive an invitation from her American agent to travel transatlantic and embark upon a programme of lectures and signings. She was particularly amazed because, having received an overture sometime before and feeling that she...

The Victorian era was a time of great change and rapid progress. Britain was undergoing the most tremendous development. Scientific discoveries had prompted the Industrial Revolution, which made Britain the world leader in iron and steel production. Science was undergoing a revolution, enabled by the groundbreaking work of Michael Faraday, who led the Royal Institution. Great swathes of Central Africa were mapped by the explorer David Livingstone and the understanding of humankind’s place in the world was being redefined by the theories of the great naturalist Charles Darwin.

'Lady B. stays to tea. (Mem.: Bread-and-butter too thick. Speak to Ethel.) We talk some more about bulbs, the Dutch School of Painting, our Vicar's wife, sciatica, and All Quiet on the Western Front. (Query: is it possible to cultivate the art of conversation when living in the country all the...

In post-war East Midlands, in a home dominated by their difficult grandmother and aunt, Yvette and Lucille are two sisters struggling to bring joy into their lives. Their mother, having run off in a scandal, leaves the two to suffer a dysfunctional family life and oppressive domesticity. But one day, Yvette meets a free-spirited gypsy and his family, awakening her sexual desires and compounding her disenchantment.

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Virginia Nicholson's Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in the Second World War. A special multi-voice recording featuring five actresses that bring to life the hundreds of personal testimonies, diary entries and books that make up this superb study...

Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler, long considered the bible of fishing, is a joyful celebration of the English countryside and the relaxed and reflective lifestyle of the devoted fisherman. Through dialogue between teacher and student, the book sheds a unique light on fishing, baiting, and cooking, including an original recipe for trout. Its music, rhymes, poetry, and humor are all brought to life by a full cast.

The Provincial Lady Goes Further is the immediate sequel to Diary of a Provincial Lady - and life mirrors art. Our Provincial Lady has found herself, unexpectedly, with a literary success on her hands! She is suddenly 'somebody', both in her Devonshire environs and in London, where she...

Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) was known as Prince of the Humanists - though a theologian, a Catholic priest and the leading European scholar of his time. A close friend of Sir Thomas More, Erasmus' writings had a strong influence on the growing movement for change in Christian...

"The fortunes and misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders, who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continue'd variety for three-score years, besides her childhood, was twelve year a whore, five times a wife (whereof once to her own brother), twelve year a thief, eight year a transported felon in Virginia at last grew rich, liv'd honest, and died a penitent."

Set in a chaotic time in England, during the height of the Napoleonic Wars, Caroline Helstone's world is turned upside down when she meets the vivacious Shirley Keeldar. Shirley becomes a beacon of light for Caroline as the two become close friends. However, Caroline is soon shocked to discover that Shirley has won the affections of Robert Moore, the impoverished mill owner whom she loves. Fully representative of Yorkshire life at the time, Brontë's second novel is completely gripping, unrelenting and utterly wrenching in its portrayal.

Kim Chown was just 11 when her father Bernard Beaumont took her from her mother to Kenya. There, he tormented Kim with extreme sexual and emotional abuse, safe in the knowledge that as a pillar of the expat community his word would be believed over hers. Aged 20, Kim returned to England...

Sharply observant and wickedly funny, E.F. Benson's six Mapp and Lucia novels satirize the upper-middle-class social climbers in 1920s and '30s rural England. Games of bridge and cups of tea fuel hilarious gossip and vindictive plots a-plenty. It is a masterfully sustained spotlight on the minutiae of village life - a clever and ultimately heartwarming series that seems tailor-made for audio. This second volume contains the second three books.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audio edition of Watch the Lady by Elizabeth Fremantle, read by Georgina Sutton and Roy McMillan. Penelope Devereux is a legendary beauty in the court of Elizabeth but it's not just her looks which mark her apart. With her canny instinct for being...

Brought to you by Penguin. FIREBRAND is now a MAJOR MOTION PICTURE starring Alicia Vikander and Jude Law For fans of WOLF HALL and the BBC's THE WHITE QUEEN Dive into the Fremantle's vivid Tudor England and meet the woman who survived Henry VIII My name is Katherine Parr. I’m thirty-one years...

First published in 1872, Poor Miss Finch tells the story of Lucilla Finch, a young woman who is blind due to an accident. Lucilla lives with her devoted companion, Madame Pratolungo, and fiancé, Oscar Dubourg. However, experimental surgery offers Lucilla the possibility of regaining her sight. Over time a love triangle emerges between Lucilla, Oscar and Oscar’s identical twin, Nugent.

In The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot weaves a poignant and powerful tale of love, family, and the complexities of fate. Set in the small English town of St. Ogg’s, the novel follows siblings Tom and Maggie Tulliver as they navigate the turbulent waters of growing up. From their idyllic childhood by the river to the adult lives shaped by societal expectations, their bond is both a source of comfort and conflict. Maggie, intelligent and passionate, is torn between her desire for intellectual freedom and the oppressive social norms of her time.

While many know of St Augustine and the Confessions, few know of the women whose hopes and dreams shaped his early life: his mother, Monnica of Thagaste; his lover; his fiancée; and Justina, the troubled empress of ancient Rome. Drawing upon their depictions in the Confessions, Historian Kate Cooper skilfully reconstructs their lives against the backdrop of the late Roman Empire to paint a vivid portrait of the turbulent society they and Augustine moved through.