Horatio Leavenworth is a New York merchant whose material wealth is matched by his eminence in the community and reputation for good works.

Ever since disgraced associate Orrie Cather’s suicide, armchair detective Nero Wolfe has relished retirement in his Manhattan brownstone on West 35th Street. Two years after Cather’s death, only a visit from Maria Radovich - and the urging of Wolfe’s prize assistant, Archie Goodwin - could draw the eccentric and reclusive genius back into business. Maria’s uncle, New York Symphony Orchestra conductor Milan Stevens, formerly known as Milos Stefanovic, spent his youth alongside Wolfe as a fellow freedom fighter in the mountains of Montenegro.

Following Jane from her childhood as an orphan in Northern England through her experience as a governess at Thornfield Hall, Charlotte Brontë's Gothic classic is an early exploration of women's independence in the mid-19th century and the pervasive societal challenges women had to endure. At Thornfield, Jane meets the complex and mysterious Mr. Rochester, with whom she shares a complicated relationship that ultimately forces her to reconcile the conflicting passions of romantic love and religious piety.

Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment.

Ever since Colin Firth's Mr Darcy emerged from the lake in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, the novels of Jane Austen have become more popular than ever, delighting millions of fans all over the world. Now, Alison Larkin's critically acclaimed narrations of Austen's six completed novels are brought together in this very special 200th anniversary audio edition. "Alison Larkin's narration will captivate listeners from the first sentence" raves AudioFile magazine about the Earphones Award-winning recording of Sense and Sensibility, which starts the collection.

Written at the request of Charles Dickens, North and South is a book about rebellion that poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Gaskell expertly blends individual feeling with social concern and her heroine, Margaret Hale, is one of the most original creations of Victorian literature. When Margaret Hale's father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience she is forced to leave her comfortable home in the tranquil countryside of Hampshire....

Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch Myshkin is one of the great characters in Russian literature. Is he a saint or just naïve? Is he an idealist or, as many in General Epanchin's society feel, an "idiot"? Certainly his return to St. Petersburg after years in a Swiss clinic has a dramatic effect on the beautiful Aglaia, youngest of the Epanchin daughters, and on the charismatic but willful Nastasya Filippovna. As he paints a vivid picture of Russian society, Dostoyevsky shows how principles conflict with emotions - with tragic results.

One of the greatest mystery thrillers ever written, Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White was a phenomenal best seller in the 1860s, achieving even greater success than works by Charles Dickens. Full of surprise, intrigue, and suspense, this vastly entertaining novel continues to enthrall audiences today.

Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and a life-long committed Darwinist, abridges and reads this special audio version of Charles Darwin's famous book. A literally world-changing book, Darwin put forward the anti-religious and scientific idea that humans in fact evolved over millions of generations from animals, starting with fish, all the way up through the ranks to apes, then to our current form.

Written when women---and workers generally---had few rights in England, Agnes Grey exposes the brutal inequities of the rigid class system in mid-19th-century Britain. Agnes comes from a respectable middle-class family, but their financial reverses have forced her to seek work as a governess.

The Professor is Charlotte Brontë's first novel albeit the last to have been published. Edited and distributed by Arthur Bell Nicholls, two years after Brontë's death, it is based on her experiences of living as a language student in Brussels. The Professor follows the career and love affairs of William Crimsworth, a reserved but compassionate aristocrat who has been ostracised by his family and left penniless.

Dombey and Son is vintage Dickens and explores the classic themes of betrayal, cruelty and deceit. Dombey's dysfunctional relationships are painted against a backdrop of social unrest in industrialized London, which is populated by a host of fascinating and memorable secondary characters. The complete and unabridged novel is brought spectacularly to life by veteran reader David Timson.

Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, this novel had an instant and phenomenal success and is widely considered to be one of the first sustained feminist novels. A mysterious widow, Mrs. Helen Graham, arrives at Wildfell Hall, a nearby old mansion. A source of curiosity for the small community, the reticent Helen and her young son Arthur are slowly drawn into the social circles of the village.

In a sleepy little New England village stands a dark, weather-beaten, many-gabled house. This brooding mansion is haunted by a centuries-old curse that casts the shadow of ancestral sin upon the last four members of the distinctive Pyncheon family of Salem.

Set in the industrialising England of the Napoleonic wars, a period of bad harvests, Luddite riots, and economic unrest, Shirley is the story of two contrasting heroines and the men they love. One is the shy Caroline Helstone, trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory, whose life represents the plight of single women in the 19th century. The other is the vivacious Shirley Keeldar, who inherits a local estate and whose wealth liberates her from convention.

In this carefully crafted novel, Dickens reveals the complexity of London society in the enterprising 1840s as he takes the listener into the business firm and home of one of its most representative patriarchs, Paul Dombey.

Written before she began her experiments in the writing of fiction, Virginia Woolf's second novel, Night and Day, is a story about a group of young people trying to discover what it means to fall in love. It asks all the big questions: What does it mean to fall in love? Does marriage grant happiness? What is happiness? Night and Day is a conventional novel; however, it maps out for us the world of Virginia Woolf in its wondrous prose: For her it was the beginning, leading on to a prolonged engagement with her search for the means to express the "inner life".

Dombey and Son is vintage Dickens and explores the classic themes of betrayal, cruelty and deceit. Dombey's dysfunctional relationships are painted against a backdrop of social unrest in industrialized London, which is populated by a host of fascinating and memorable secondary characters. The complete and unabridged novel is brought spectacularly to life by veteran reader David Timson.

Set in the industrialising England of the Napoleonic wars, a period of bad harvests, Luddite riots, and economic unrest, Shirley is the story of two contrasting heroines and the men they love. One is the shy Caroline Helstone, trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory, whose life represents the plight of single women in the 19th century. The other is the vivacious Shirley Keeldar, who inherits a local estate and whose wealth liberates her from convention.

Mrs Gereth, a wealthy widow, is dreading the day that her son, Owen, gets married. She hopes that he will marry a woman who will appreciate their home and all of its treasures as she does. So she enlists the help of Fleda Vetch to try to corrupt the impending marriage of her son and Mona Brigstock - a philistine who is determined to marry Owen in order to inherit Mrs Gereth’s valuable possessions and home by any means. Meanwhile, Fleda hides her real feelings towards Owen. Even when he ends up feeling the same way, Fleda cannot bring herself to marry him as this would force him to break his engagement to Mona, and thus betray all of her own ideals.

Through a series of calculated moves that involve death and a large inheritance, a small community is rocked and shrouded in mystery at the hands of the conniving Sir Percival Glyde, who is interested only in making himself wealthy at the hands of others.... Celebrated as one of the first popular mystery novels, The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, skillfully incorporates the twisting and turning of more than a few plot lines that all manage to converge beautifully at the end of the work.

Written at the request of Charles Dickens, North and South is a book about rebellion that poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Gaskell expertly blends individual feeling with social concern and her heroine, Margaret Hale, is one of the most original creations of Victorian literature. When Margaret Hale's father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience she is forced to leave her comfortable home in the tranquil countryside of Hampshire....

Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, this novel had an instant and phenomenal success and is widely considered to be one of the first sustained feminist novels. A mysterious widow, Mrs. Helen Graham, arrives at Wildfell Hall, a nearby old mansion. A source of curiosity for the small community, the reticent Helen and her young son Arthur are slowly drawn into the social circles of the village.

A masterful blend of Gothic drama and romance, Wilkie Collins' mystery novel is an exploration of illegitimacy and inheritance. Set in Cornwall, the plot foreshadows The Woman in White with its themes of doubtful identity and deception and involves a broad array of characters. The "secret" of the book's title is the true parentage of the book's heroine, Rosamond Treverton, which has been written down and kept in an unused room at Porthgenna Tower. This is where, 20 years later, much of the novel's action is set.

Hailed as Charlotte Brontë’s “finest novel” by Virginia Woolf, Villette is the timeless semi-autobiographical tale of Lucy Snowe. Left with no family and no money, Lucy goes against her own timid nature and travels to the small city of Villette, France, where she becomes a school teacher in Madame Beck’s school for girls. During her stay, she falls in love—twice—and discovers an independent, inner strength rarely seen in women of her time.

Having lost the family savings on risky investments, Richard Grey removes himself from family life and suffers a bout of depression. Feeling helpless and frustrated, his youngest daughter, Agnes, applies for a job as a governess to the children of a wealthy, upper-class, English family. Ecstatic at the thought that she has finally gained control and freedom over her own life, Agnes arrives at the Bloomfield mansion armed with confidence and purpose.

The unapologetic intensity with which Emily Brontë wrote this story ensures that it will forever be considered one of the greatest works of English literature. A passionate tale of a chaotic and often violent love, Wuthering Heights transcends your average romance and, with its Gothic undertones, takes the listener on a journey through one man's lustful hunt for revenge.

Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment.

Young Prince Mishkin is that rare thing - a "completely beautiful human being". He is honest, humble, generous, and selfless, but unfortunately these traits mean he is often mistaken for an idiot. Upon his return to St. Petersburg, after being away at a Swiss sanatorium for the treatment of epilepsy, Prince Mishkin is taken under the wing of the wife of General Yepanchin, who arranges for him to live with the family of her money-obsessed friend Ganya.

Edgar Allan Poe, the master of terror, wrote some of literature's most entertaining and influential short stories, works that invented or anticipated modern detective novels, science fiction, and the horror genre. Tales of Terror collects nine of Poe's best-loved stories, all performed in chilling, highly dramatic readings by Jack Foreman. This collection includes such classics as "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Fall of the House of Usher", and what many consider his masterpiece, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."