This final play from the pen of Oscar Wilde is a stylish send-up of Victorian courtship and manners, complete with assumed names, mistaken lovers, and a lost handbag. Jack and Algernon are best friends, both wooing ladies who think their names are Ernest, "that name which inspires absolute confidence". Wilde's effervescent wit, scathing social satire, and high farce make this one of the most cherished plays in the English language.

A young, shy, sickly priest is assigned to his first parish, a sleepy village in Northern France. Though his faith is devout, he finds nothing but indifference and mockery. The children laugh at his teachings, his parishioners are consumed by boredom, rumours are spread about him and he is tormented by stomach pains. Even his attempts to clarify his thoughts in a diary fail to deliver him from worldly concerns. Yet somehow, despite his suffering, he tries to find love for his fellow humans and even a state of grace.

Irascible phonetics professor Henry Higgins makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can train Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle to talk ‘like a lady’ and pass as a duchess at the Ambassador’s Ball. As the day of reckoning approaches, can Eliza convince the assembled aristocrats that she’s one of them? And what will become of her afterwards? This effervescent radio version of Shaw’s classic comedy features a stellar cast, including award-winning comedians Alistair McGowan as Henry Higgins, Morgana Robinson as Eliza Doolittle and Al Murray as Alfred Doolittle.

Marooned on a tropical island, alone in a world of uncharted possibilities, and devoid of adult supervision or rules, a group of British boys begins to forge a society with its own unique rules and rituals.

There is now no doubt that not only is Waiting for Godot the outstanding play of the 20th century, but it is also Samuel Beckett's masterpiece. Yet it is both a popular text to be studied at school and an enigma. The scene is a country road. There is a solitary tree. It is evening. Two tramp-like figures, Vladimir and Estragon, exchange words. Pull off boots. Munch a root vegetable. Two other curious characters enter. And a boy. Time passes. It is all strange yet familiar.

Celebrating its 75th anniversary, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men remains one of America's most widely read and beloved novels. Here is Steinbeck’s dramatic adaptation of his novel-as-play, which received the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play in 1937-1938 and has featured a number of actors who have played the iconic roles of George and Lennie on stage and film, including James Earl Jones, John Malkovich and Gary Sinise.

One of the most important novels in classic literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter tackles the subject of adultery, with the notorious Hester Prynne at the forefront of the scandal in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the beginning of the novel, Hester is serving time in prison for having a child out of wedlock and is forced to wear a scarlet A on her clothing at all times, so she cannot run from her sin no matter where she goes.

In Othello, Shakespeare creates powerful drama from a marriage between the exotic Moor Othello and the Venetian lady Desdemona. Shakespeare builds many differences into his hero and heroine, including race, age, and cultural background. Yet most audiences believe the couple’s strong love would overcome these differences were it not for Iago, who sets out to destroy Othello.

Little is known about the Ancient Greek oral poet Homer, the supposed 8th century BC author of the world-read Iliad and his later masterpiece, The Odyssey. These classic epics provided the basis for Greek education and culture throughout the classical age and formed the backbone of humane education through the birth of the Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity.

Macbeth, one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, is among the most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language. Promised a golden future as ruler of Scotland by three sinister witches, Macbeth murders the king in order to succeed to the throne. Tortured by his conscience and fearful of discovery, he becomes fatally enmeshed in a web of treachery and deceit.

If you want to understand the daily life and psychology of the late Middle Ages, Ronald Ecker’s classic translation of The Canterbury Tales provides one of the very best means of doing so. Within its audio is to be found a broad range of society - high and low, male and female, rich and poor - who express their innermost beliefs and extravagant fantasies in a series of stories they tell as they make their way to Canterbury Cathedral.

In this short book illuminated by a deep understanding and love of humanity, John Steinbeck retells an old Mexican folk tale: the story of the great pearl, how it was found, and how it was lost. For the diver Kino, finding a magnificent pearl means the promise of a better life for his impoverished family. His dream blinds him to the greed and suspicions the pearl arouses in him and his neighbors, and even his loving wife cannot temper his obsession or stem the events leading to the tragedy. For Steinbeck, Kino and his wife illustrate the fall from innocence of people who believe that wealth erases all problems.

Initially banned in France by King Louis, Molière's celebrated social satire Tartuffe exposes false piety and hypocrisy in the Catholic Church. When a pious fraud worms his way into a wealthy family and manipulates the patriarch into giving up his fortune, it’s up to his family to expose the truth before they end up in the poorhouse!

Nora Helmer has everything a young housewife could want: Beautiful children, an adoring husband, and a bright future. But when a carelessly buried secret rises from the past, Nora’s well-calibrated domestic ideal starts to crumble. Ibsen’s play is as fresh today as it was when it first stormed the stages of 19th-century Europe.

Written in 1819 but set in 12th-century England, Ivanhoe is a tale of love struggling to survive against a violent backdrop of politics and war. Wilfred of Ivanhoe was thrown out of his father's home when he fell in love with his father Cedric's ward, Lady Rowena. Ivanhoe later returns from fighting in the Crusades and is wounded in a jousting tournament. A series of events follows, including the return of King Richard to England, resulting in Ivanhoe's reconciliation with Cedric and his marriage to Rowena.

Freckles, a plucky young man, lands a job as a watchman for a lumber company that logs timber in a mysterious forest swamp called the Limberlost.

Shirley Hollister is desperate. She, her ailing mother, and her four siblings are being forced out of their cramped city apartment. Where to go on her meager stenographer's salary? On a whim, she takes a trolley ride into the countryside and spies a barn: spacious, full of light, and surrounded by God's wondrous nature. Her new landlord, Sidney Graham, is intrigued by this lovely young woman and her plans to turn his abandoned barn into a home.

The sudden death of the father of the family results in the drastic reduction of the Careys' income and they must leave their comfortable home in Boston. Nancy Carey, the eldest, recalls a vacation in Maine when they all picnicked in the garden of a big, vacant house that her father loved. She discovers that the house is available, the rent is cheap, and persuades her mother that life in The Yellow House in Beulah, Maine is the perfect place to begin their new life.

Julia Cloud had a gentle, caring spirit, devoting her life to her Lord Jesus and caring for others, including her invalid mother. After her mother's death she was faced with a bleak life of poverty until an unexpected visit from her wealthy niece and nephew completely changed her life. They were off to college and wanted "Cloudy Jewel", their childhood nickname for Julia, to come and be their mother and chaperone. Thus started a new adventure for all three, full of love and happiness.

Fans of L. M. Montgomery's Anne Shirley rejoice! Collected here are six of the original Anne Shirley books in the order they were published. This collection includes Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne's House of Dreams, Rainbow Valley, and Rilla of Ingleside. Published between 1908 and 1921, these heartwarming tales of hidden hopes and cherished dreams will enchant fans and new listeners alike.

Jules Verne’s classic science fiction fantasy carries its hero - Professor Aronnax of the Museum of Paris - on a thrilling and dangerous journey far below the waves to see what creatures live in the ocean’s depths. In the process, Verne imagined a vessel that had not yet been invented: the submarine.

Jerusha Abbott is the oldest orphan in the John Grier Home. Every day she helps scrub and dress the younger children - all 97 of them. Soon she will graduate from high school and be on her own. Where will she go, and how will she support herself? When an anonymous wealthy donor decides to send her to college, Jerusha can hardly believe her good fortune. All she must do in return is send him a letter once a month. With all the excitement of college life - classes, parties, new friends, and a special gentleman - Jerusha can hardly stop writing!

Instructed to abandon her intellectual life and avoid stimulating company, she sinks into a still-deeper depression invisible to her husband, who believes he knows what is best for her. Alone in the yellow-wallpapered nursery of a rented house, she descends into madness.

On a farm in western Missouri, during the first half of the twentieth century, Matthew and Callie Soames create a life for themselves and raise four headstrong daughters. Jessica will break their hearts. Leonie will fall in love with the wrong man. Mary Jo will escape to New York. And wild child Mathy’s fate will be the family’s greatest tragedy. Over the decades they will love, deceive, comfort, forgive - and, ultimately, they will come to cherish all the more fiercely the bonds of love that hold the family together.

First published in 1869, Little Women is the story of four sisters growing up against the background of the American Civil War. Alcott wrote the book at the urging of the publisher, Thomas Niles, who was seeking a story about girls that would have popular appeal. Although it was commenced essentially as a children's book, it developed into something of a bildungsroman, which touches on more serious issues such as the difficulties faced by single-parent families, the death of a sibling, and fractured relationships.

A biting satire that countered the American myth of wholesome small-town life with a depiction of narrow-minded provincialism, it was to some degree based on Lewis's own experience of growing on Sauk Centre, Minnesota. Set in mid-1910s, it depicts the struggles of Carol Kennicott, a city girl, as she tries to adapt to small town life, having left her librarian job and St. Paul, Minnesota to marry Dr. Will Kennicott of Gopher Prairie. Dismayed by the town’s drabness and the conforming, petty inhabitants, Carol optimistically sets out to improve the town.

When Bev and Felix arrive at the King farm in Prince Edward Island, they have no idea of the adventures and memories in store for them. Is old Peg Bowen really a witch? What secrets does the neighbor keep hidden in his spare room? What if tomorrow is the end of the world? And what is in the old blue chest? Along with their cousins, they learn the value of work and play, the wisdom of proverbs, how to struggle with temptations and face their fears.

Raised in post-Revolution Granville, Massachusetts, James Gould could only imagine the beauty and warmth of the lands to the south. It was there that he longed to build bridges and lighthouses from his very own designs and plans. His gripping story unfolds as Gould follows his dream to the raw settlement of Bangor on the Penobscot River, St. Simons Island off the coast of Georgia, lawless Spanish East Florida, and back - at last and finally - to St. Simons.

During the hectic Christmas season, slow down with these heartwarming stories from some of literature’s most beloved writers. In this collection, listeners will discover lesser-known but tender stories and poems from classic authors they know and love. Each selection celebrates the beauty, mystery, and joy found in the season that commemorates Christ’s birth. A Vintage Christmas includes stories from Louisa May Alcott, Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, and many more great writers....

A moving coming-of-age story set in the 1900s, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn follows the lives of 11-year-old Francie Nolan, her younger brother Neely, and their parents, Irish immigrants who have settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Johnny Nolan is as loving and fanciful as they come, but he is also often drunk and out of work, unable to find his place in the land of opportunity.