The Ambassadors
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Narrated by:
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Peter Gray
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By:
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Henry James
About this listen
Here is Henry James' dark comedic masterpiece, written in the final period of his life.
Lambert Strether goes to Paris to bring back Chad, son of the wealthy New England widow he plans to marry. But he gradually comes to feel that life in Paris may hold more for him than in Woollett, Massachusetts.
American-born English author Henry James (1843- 1916), was one of the founders and leaders of realism in fiction and is considered to be one of the great British novelists.
Please note: This is a vintage recording. The audio quality may not be up to modern day standards.
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Couldn't stop listening
- By Michael Breed on 12-09-09
By: Edith Wharton
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The Gambler
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, C. J. Hogarth - translator
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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The Gambler is a psychologically probing novel concerning the gambling episodes, tangled love affairs, and complicated lives of Alexis Ivanovitch, a young gambling addict; Polina Alexandrovna, the woman he loves; a pair of French adventurers; and other characters. Narrated by Alexis, this short novel is based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's own experiences as a compulsive gambler.
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Great book, great narration, proper pronunciation
- By Mike R. on 09-16-11
By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, and others
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Thus Bad Begins
- A Novel
- By: Javier Marias, Margaret Jull Costa
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 16 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Madrid, 1980. Juan de Vere, nearly finished with his university degree, takes a job as personal assistant to Eduardo Muriel, an eccentric, once-successful film director. Urbane, discreet, irreproachable, Muriel is an irresistible idol to the young man. But Muriel's voluptuous wife, Beatriz, inhabits their home like an unwanted ghost, and on the periphery of their lives is Dr. Jorge Van Vechten, a family friend implicated in unsavory rumors that Muriel now asks Juan to investigate.
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Fascinating plot, superb performance, psychological depth
- By Doctor George on 12-05-16
By: Javier Marias, and others
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The Ladies of Rosings Park
- A Pride and Prejudice Sequel and Companion to The Darcys of Pemberley
- By: Shannon Winslow
- Narrated by: Marian Hussey
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Chapter by chapter, these ladies of Rosings Park take turns telling the tale from the moment Elizabeth Bennet sets foot in Hunsford, changing everything. Is Anne heartbroken or relieved to discover Mr. Darcy will never marry her? As an heiress, even a sickly one, she must have other suitors. Does Lady Catherine gracefully accept the defeat of her original plan or keep conniving? Will Anne’s health ever improve? And what really happened to her father?
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NOT Jane Austen
- By susan on 03-02-19
By: Shannon Winslow
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The Castle
- By: Franz Kafka
- Narrated by: Allan Corduner
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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A land-surveyor, known only as K., arrives at a small village permanently covered in snow and dominated by a castle to which access seems permanently denied. K.'s attempts to discover why he has been called constantly run up against the peasant villagers, who are in thrall to the absurd bureaucracy that keeps the castle shut, and the rigid hierarchy of power among the self-serving bureaucrats themselves.
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A masculine and coquettish reading
- By Alan on 05-27-12
By: Franz Kafka
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Jennie Gerhardt
- A Novel
- By: Theodore Dreiser
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Jennie Gerhardt is the tragic story of an innocent, caring, beautiful young girl from an extremely poor family who throughout her life is drawn into affairs with two different men from a much higher social class. How members of her family, the family of one of the wealthy men, and society in general react to her situation is the basis of this classic story.
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Need a pick me up.
- By knvmxi on 05-15-16
By: Theodore Dreiser
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The Woman in White
- By: Wilkie Collins
- Narrated by: Andrea Giordani
- Length: 25 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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horrible technically - echoes at most of the words
- By James D. Coburn on 12-30-15
By: Wilkie Collins
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Sanditon
- Jane Austen's Unfinished Masterpiece Completed
- By: Jane Austen, Juliette Shapiro
- Narrated by: Helen Lloyd
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Had Jane Austen lived to complete Sanditon, it would have been as treasured as her other novels. In the half-finished masterpiece, Austen fashions one of her classic heroines: Charlotte Heywood. The surviving fragment also sets the story well on its path as Charlotte begins an adventure to Sanditon where a full cast of characters becomes intertwined in various intrigues.
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There is a reason Jane didn't finish this book
- By ELEANOR FOWSER on 06-21-14
By: Jane Austen, and others
What listeners say about The Ambassadors
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Erez
- 01-23-11
A very problematic reading
I usually love the RNIB audiobooks: they may have an "older" feel to them, but the narrators are all unmistakably professional and generally do their jobs extremely well. Peter Grey is also a professional narrator, but sadly he is not the right man for this audiobook. First of all, his accent is so "plummy" that it would make the Queen sound common. This in itself is not a very big problem for me, but if you're not used to this sort of accent it might be enough to completely ruin the audiobook. Listen to the sample and decide. But the bigger issue is that most of the characters in the book are Americans, and Mr. Grey tries to read their parts with an American accent, which is where he completely and utterly fails. His idea of an American accent seems to be to pronounce all the R's, but all his vowel sounds remain unchanged. It would have been much better had he not tried at all, and read everything in his own accent. A secondary problem is that he barely differentiates the different characters' voices, but there are enough cues in the text itself and in the paragraph breaks to make this tolerable.
In the end, I was able to ignore the narrator's shortcomings and follow the prose, but it was hard work. I would recommend looking for another version of this book, unless your own accent happens to be like that of Mr. Grey, in which case you probably wouldn't mind it.
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6 people found this helpful
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- A Reader
- 01-19-16
The best of many Audible versions
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes. I listened to all of Audible's sample readings of James' novel The Ambassadors. Though a bit quirky at first, I got used to Mr. Gray's reading style. James is very hard to read aloud and I felt Mr. Gray did it the best. He also, unusual to many readers, saw James' humor and even giggled at points. His reading was delightful.
What other book might you compare The Ambassadors to and why?
Other late James - the Wings of the Dove or The Golden Bowl. James was unique in this period of trying to be realistic rather than romantic, trying to eliminate the author from the story and ulitimately telling the story from his protagonist's point of view only.
Which character – as performed by Peter Gray – was your favorite?
Certainly Lambert Strether.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Definitely the seen on the river when Strether espies Chad and Mme. de Vionnet as they really were.
Any additional comments?
A long story but well worth listening to. I did refer now and then to the actual text to read along or reread what I'd heard. James' writing deserves that.
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Overall
- Tracy
- 12-07-10
Appalling recording
Not only is the quality dreadful (I guess you get what you pay for - $6.90), but the narrator has a ludicrous British accent so over-the-top that I truly believed that it was meant to be a joke at first, and, even worse, he does an imitation American accent that is so terrible that I couldn't identify what it was meant to be until I was couple of hours into the recording. Henry James does not deserve this - pay the extra to get a reasonable recording.
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2 people found this helpful
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- HappyLady
- 01-24-16
Fine book, difficult to understand narration
Was looking forward to hearing this book after the excellent audiobook of Washington Square narration. Having traveled widely enough to appreciate and enjoy various accents and inflections, unfortunately I was unable to follow what was being said at times during this narration. It was a great disappointment because I am a longstanding fan of James. Sadly, somehow there is a distortion of narration that made listening and comprehension nearly impossible.
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- london girl
- 12-07-08
terrible recording
This is a very old recording and the sound quality is very bad. I don't think it should be available through audible.
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10 people found this helpful
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Overall
- John
- 12-11-10
Way below Audible's standard
This is a great novel, but as other reviewers have mentioned, the reader is terrible. The phony American accent is bad enough but it often breaks down into an awful Irish accent! When Audible offers something for a low price, listen to the sample first
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3 people found this helpful