Showing results by narrator "Linda Barrans" in All Categories

In As You Like It, a wicked Duke expels his virtuous brother, the lawful ruler, from his domains. The banished Duke takes refuge with his followers in the Forest of Arden, where they live as free a life as did Robin Hood and his merry men.

Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen's classic comic romance, in which the five Bennet sisters try to find that most elusive creature: a single man in possession of a large fortune. Sparks fly when sweet, pretty Jane meets their new neighbor, Mr. Bingley, but her sister Elizabeth is offended by his haughty friend, Mr. Darcy. This is Jane Austen at the height of her powers, complete with ironic narration, hilariously drawn supporting characters, and romantic suspense.

Queen Marguerite de Navarre was one of the most powerful women of her age. Her masterpiece, The Heptameron, is a collection of some 72 stories told by five gentlemen and five ladies who find themselves stranded in an abbey. Proposed as an edifying way of passing the time while a bridge is being repaired, the tale-telling - as well as the conversations that follow each story - quickly becomes a battle of wits between the sexes, with tales concerning illicit lovers, romantic conquests, lecherous monks, manly honor, and women's virtue.

Freckles and A Girl of the Limberlost are two of Gene Stratton Porter's most famous novels. Set primarily in the Limberlost Swamp of Indiana, USA, Freckles follows the story of Freckles, a lame orphan whose innate character rises above his circumstances. A Girl of the Limberlost is the story of Elnora, blamed for her father's death by her mother, who nevertheless meets every challenge that comes her way with admirable resilience.

Freckles is the only name he has ever known. His right hand is missing at the wrist, and he is haunted by not knowing how it happened. Raised since infancy in a Chicago orphanage, he speaks with a slight Irish accent and sings with a beautiful voice. Now, exhausted after many days of walking, he applies for a job with the Grand Rapids Lumber Company, guarding timber in the Limberlost Swamp from timber thieves. His Swamp Angel declares her love for him and promises that she will find his parents and prove that Freckles comes from "a race of men that have been gentlemen for ages."

In January 1817, Jane Austen began work on Sanditon, but died a few months later, leaving it unfinished. The surviving fragment begins the story of Charlotte Heywood, a sheltered young woman who is invited to the up-and-coming resort town of Sanditon. While there, she meets a host of memorable characters, drawn with Austen's classic wit and insight, including a fortune-hunting fop, a domineering dowager, and a hoard of hypochondriacs.  

Uncle Vanya is Anton Chekhov's 1902 tragicomedy focusing on the romantic entanglements of the residents of a declining country estate. Vanya loves Helena, the unhappily married wife of aged professor Serebrakoff. Sonia loves Dr. Astroff, but he's more interested in Helena. Serebrakoff loves only himself and is idealized by Vanya's mother, who believes him to be a genius.

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (aka PG Wodehouse) wrote in excess of 90 books, 40 plays, and 200 short stories between 1902 and 1974 and is widely regarded as one of the greatest humorists of the 20th century. Right Ho, Jeeves! is his second in a series of books written about a luckless young British millionaire named Bertram Wooster and his sharp valet, Jeeves.

Franz Kafka was one of the first and greatest masters of dystopian literature. In his bleak world view, man is presented as helpless and ineffectual, his destiny determined by distant, obscure and essentially unfriendly agencies. In none of his works is this savage and unreasoning enslavement presented more vividly than in Metamorphosis, a novella in which Gregor Samsa, a respectable employee and dutiful son, wakes to find himself transformed into a gigantic insect.

Persuasion was the last novel completed by Jane Austen and was first published posthumously in December, 1817. The story represents an interesting configuration of Austen’s characteristic narrative patterns. The heroine, Anne Eliot, is something of an old maid—she is twenty-seven years old, still single and is considered by family and friends to have lost her youthful beauty. Several years earlier, her engagement to Captain Frederick Wentworth had been broken off, due to the insistence of her family that the Captain lacked the wealth and status needed for a suitable husband.

Much Ado About Nothing appears to have been written about 1599, shortly before As You Like It and Twelfth Night. The action combines two narrative threads: the spirited comedy of the courtship of Benedick and Beatrice, and the somber tale of confused love between Hero and Claudio. The first is a creation by Shakespeare and the second appears to have been drawn from an Italian source, either by Bandello or Ariosto. The action takes place in Messina. Eponymous lovers Hero and Claudio seem to be ideally matched and nearly everyone is looking forward to their impending marriage.

As the generating force of its plot, Twelfth Night uses a device which has since become a staple in comedy: gender confusion. Viola and her twin brother Sebastian, are shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria, a country ruled by the melancholy Duke Orsino. The twins are separated and Viola is led to believe that her brother has perished. She disguises herself as a male under the name of Cesario and makes her way to the ducal court, where Orsino employs her as a messenger, to communicate his love to the reclusive lady, Olivia—who is not willing to return his affection.

This collection of 35 short poems was first published in 1927, and is a sequel to When We Were Very Young, which was the first anthology of verse dealing with the domestic adventures of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh.

The Green Cockatoo is a short play set in a busy tavern on the night of the storming of the Bastille. Rich Parisian nobles come to watch some actors play at being rogues, thieves, and other criminals, but they quickly find reality and fantasy blending together in the most alarming of ways.

This play is a fictionalized account of the life of William Shakespeare, beginning from his humble origins in Stratford-upon-Avon with his wife, Anne Hathaway, to his life as a successful playwright in London. This play uses several biographical speculations about Shakespeare's life to tell a fascinating tale, such as his relationship with his wife (to whom he famously left his "second-best bed" in his will), his friendship with fellow playwright and competitor Christopher Marlowe, his interactions with Queen Elizabeth I, and an extramarital dalliance with the queen's maid of honor.

Exiles is the only play written by James Joyce. It draws material from "The Dead", the final story in his famous short stories collection, Dubliners. It centers around four individuals - Richard, Robert, Bertha, and Beatrice - and the complex romantic entanglements between them as tensions rise and relationships are tested.

Ludovico is a despised second son, only child of a scorned second wife. He finds love with Viola, a peasant girl, and they have a son. Their happiness is threatened when Ludovico's older brother dies suddenly and he becomes the heir. His father, the proud and cruel prince of Mondolfo, will let nothing stand in the way of his legacy. 

In Jane Austen's unfinished novel, young Emma Watson returns to her father's house after being raised by her wealthy and refined uncle. As she gets to know her family, she finds that her father is reclusive and sickly, her sisters are crude and shallow, and her eldest brother has a petulance that is matched only by his wife's.  

The Wind in the Willows, first published in 1908, is one of the most beloved of all children's classics and has been adapted on multiple occasions for presentation on stage, in film, and as an opera. The action centers on the efforts of Mole, Rat, and Badger to discipline and reform their wealthy and self-destructive friend Toad, who lives in a splendid mansion known as Toad Hall.

The second of four novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring famed detective Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of the Four is set in London but has its origins in colonial India. Four men in Agra make a pact to share the proceeds of a stolen treasure, but they are deceived by a fifth, who finds and takes the loot back to England and hides it. A decade on, young Mary Morstan receives the first of several lustrous pearls in the post - a mysterious gift delivered to her on the same date for several years.