Showing results by narrator "Glenda Jackson" in All Categories

Here is the quintessence of romance that spans not only the ages but the full range of passionate expression of love in all of its forms and stages. Authors include John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, George Gordon Byron, Baron Byron, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Blake.

Mrs Whitaker just wants to have a chat with her dear friend Mrs Greenberg over homemade macaroons. But her charity shop find soon makes her the focal point of a most important quest when a handsome young man - who says he’s called Galaad - comes asking for the Grail. This sound designed, multi-voiced reading is an extended cut, including material not heard in the radio broadcast, and is introduced by an exclusive interview with Neil Gaiman.

After Emily Dickinson's death in 1886, her sister Lavinia discovered 1,775 poems bound and small packets tied with thread. They were first published in 1890, attracting unexpected attention in literary circles. With sparse, precise language, Emily Dickinson conveyed a penetrating vision of the natural world and an acute understanding of the most profound human truths. Her poems have been widely recognized as among the greatest in the English language. 

First published between 1870 and 1893, Émile Zola’s 20-book cycle chronicling four generations of the Rougon-Macquarts was a shocking exposé of the decadence, degradation and moral decay of 19th-century France. It included some of his greatest novels, among them his masterpiece, Germinal. These innovative, ambitious dramas, first broadcast on Radio 4 over 24 hours in 2015-16, are a radical reimagining of Zola’s classic series, introducing us to 104-year-old matriarch, Dide, imprisoned in an asylum in southern France. 

Just as the style of a great writer cannot easily be imitated, the performance of a great reader is hard to duplicate. This volume features some of the best readers dramatizing some of the best writings.

Jane Austen's rich and charming novel about a virtuous young woman's search for love amidst the fickle world of country gentry in Regency England is one of her most memorable works. Anne Elliot exists in a world where shallowness and hypocrisy present a challenge to her own centered values and tender emotions. Anne vies for the affections of the man she loves while at the same time her willpower is threatened as she battles the conventions of a proper parochial society.

Jane Austen's first novel is a timeless story of love and marriage as seen through the eyes of two very different heroines, the Dashwood sisters - cautious, level-headed Elinor and impulsive lively Marianne - one representing sense and the other sensibility. Austen's genius for portraying the social norms of her time, along with vivid characters and her trademark ironic wit, make this novel a classic to be treasured.

Acclaimed British actress Glenda Jackson narrates what has been called the most important novel of its era. The character of Emma Bovary, a beautiful young woman longing to escape from her dull husband and the constrictions of bourgeois life in France is one of the most compelling figures in all literature. The story of her adulteries and financial ruin was so shocking to mid-19th-century readers that Flaubert was charged with "offenses against public morals and religion".

Four well-known actresses read these poems by one of the greatest American poets of the 19th century. Beginning always with particulars of personal experience, her poems encompass life and death, love and longing, joyfulness and sorrow. With sparse, precise language, she conveys a penetrating vision of the natural world and an acute understanding of the most profound human truths.

This Jane Austen novel tells the story of the Dashwood sisters: cautious, level-headed Elinor and the impulsive, lively Marianne. A satire of the romantic novel, a popular genre in 18th-century Britain, this timeless story is a study of love and marriage through the eyes of two very different heroines, one representing sense, or logic, and the other presenting sensibility, or emotionalism.

A parody of the popular literature of the time, is an ironic tale of the romantic folly of men and women in pursuit of love, marriage, and money. The humorous adventures of young Catherine as she encounters "the difficulties and dangers of a six weeks' residence in Bath" lead to some of Austen's most brilliant social satire. There is Catherine's hilarious liaison with a paragon of bad manners and boastfulness, her disastrous friendship with an unforgettably crass coquette, and a whirl of cotillion dances with their timeless mortifications.

Dating back to the sixth century BC, Aesop's Fables tell universal truths through the use of simple allegories that are easily understood. Though almost nothing is known of Aesop himself, and some scholars question whether he existed at all, these stories stand as timeless classics known in almost every culture in the world.