Showing results by narrator "Anton Lesser" in All Categories

Robert Browning's poetic masterpiece of sex, lies and murder, adapted by Martyn Wade. Episode 1: Rome is rife with speculation in the aftermath of a triple stabbing. Starring Anton Lesser as Browning, with full cast. Directed by Abigail le Fleming.Episode 2: Accused of murder, Guido fights...

One night there was a thunderstorm. A tattered scarecrow stood in the wind and rain, taking no notice . . . until a bolt of lightning struck his turnip head. The scarecrow blinked with surprise and came to life. So begins the story of the Scarecrow, a courteous but pea-brained fellow with grand...

This is a story from the The Happy Prince and Other Stories collection.

This is a story from the Canterbury Tales I: Modern Verse Translation collection. Chaucer's greatest work, written towards the end of the fourteenth century, paints a brilliant picture of medieval life, society and values. The stories range from the romantic, courtly idealism of "The Knight's Tale" to the joyous bawdy of the Miller's; all are told with a freshness and vigor in this modern verse translation that make them a delight to hear.

Abridged edition. Heartstone is C. J. Sansom's fifth spellbinding mystery in the Shardlake series. Summer, 1545. England is at war. Henry VIII's invasion of France has gone badly wrong, and a massive French fleet is preparing to sail across the Channel. As the English fleet gathers at Portsmouth...

Anton Lesser and Anna Madeley star in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of the fourth novel in Lindsey Davis's bestselling series featuring Roman private eye Falco. The Iron Hand of Mars sees Falco being dispatched to one of the most hostile parts of the Empire to deliver a new standard...

"A ghostly little book", said Charles Dickens of his famous Christmas novella, which first appeared in 1843. It has become the most famous classic Christmas story of all, with the miserly figure of Scrooge, the epitome of the callous employer; sadly crippled Tiny Tim; and the three spectres: the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future. This audiobook continues the award-winning series of Dickens' works read by leading English classical actor Anton Lesser.

"It was the best of times and the worst of times." In one of the most famous openings of any novel, Dickens masterfully presents the turmoil of the French Revolution, which is the backdrop for a novel of love, patience, hope, and self-sacrifice. This version is read by Anton Lesser, whose award-winning Dickens recordings in their abridged form has now resulted in the opportunity to read the full unabridged text.

This is a story from the The Happy Prince and Other Stories collection.

Archangel tells the story of four days in the life of Fluke Kelso, a dissipated, middle-aged former Oxford historian who is in Moscow to attend a conference on newly opened Soviet archives. One night Kelso is visited in his hotel room by an old NKVD officer, a former bodyguard of the secret police chief, Lavrentii Beria. The old man claims to have been at Stalin's dacha on the night Stalin had his fatal stroke, and to have helped Beria steal the dictator's private papers, among them a notebook.

The Dhammapada is the single most important extant Buddhist text. It is unquestionably 'the voice of the Buddha' where many of his key ideas are presented in a cogent verse form. It opens: "All that we are is the result of what we have thought", and each of the following sections gives clear guidance on how to change our thought. Also included on this recording are other key Buddhist concepts illustrated by original texts.

The Trojan War is over, and Odysseus, the cunning king of Ithaca, sets out for home, his wife Penelope, and his son Telemachus. It proves a long, 10-year journey, fraught with dangers, from Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclops, and the seductive Sirens, to the love of Calypso on her all-too-comfortable isle.

William Dorrit has been a resident of the Marshalsea debtors prison for so many years that he has gained the nickname "The Father of the Marshalsea". However, his suffering is eased by his close bond with youngest daughter Amy, or "Little Dorrit". The dashing Arthur Clennam, returning to London after many years in China, enters their lives and the Dorrits' fortunes begin to rise and fall. A biting satirical work on the shortcomings of 19th-century government and society.

Rumi's Spiritual Verses is the greatest mystical poem in Islamic culture - and of all time. Rumi examines our human separation from reality, love, and truth. He shows how love - neither erotic nor sentimental but divine, by which the universe is held together - enlightens ignorance and dissolves suffering. The first book of the Masnavi is the key to the whole work: It takes off from simple, amusing tales into realms unimaginable, but wholly familiar to the human heart.

This is a story from the The Happy Prince and Other Stories collection.

This 14th-century Italian poet was a model for many who followed him. His passionate sonnets to Laura became the epitome for love poetry. Over some 40 years he wrote 366 sonnets to Laura, whom he probably never even spoke to, and they remain immediate and affecting even now. Called "Rime Sparse (Scattered Rhymes)", they influenced Chaucer and many others.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in collaboration with his friend, William Wordsworth, revolutionized English poetry. In 1798 they produced their Lyrical Ballads, poems of imagination and reflection using "the language of men" - pointing the way forward for a generation of Romantic poets.

This widely studied play is one of the "best sellers" of the Shakespeare canon. This production is the sixth Shakespeare play in the series undertaken by Naxos AudioBooks in conjunction with Cambridge University Press.

This is a story from the The Happy Prince and Other Stories collection.

With more than 80 of the most popular and loved poems in the English language, this collection is one of the most comprehensive anthologies of its kind. It covers a remarkable range, from the striking visions of Blake and Shelley and the insights of Keats to lighter but equally memorable verse by Tennyson.