The Battle of Life
A Love Story
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Narrated by:
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Peter Walters
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By:
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Charles Dickens
About this listen
The Battle of Life: A Love Story is an 1846 novel by Charles Dickens. It is the fourth of his five "Christmas Books", coming after The Cricket on the Hearth and followed by The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. The setting is an English village that stands on the site of an historic battle. Some characters refer to the battle as a metaphor for the struggles of life, hence the title. Battle is the only one of the five Christmas Books that has no supernatural or explicitly religious elements. (One scene takes place at Christmas time, but it is not the final scene.) The story bears some resemblance to The Cricket on the Hearth in two respects: it has a non-urban setting, and it is resolved with a romantic twist. It is even less of a social novel than is Cricket. As is typical with Dickens, the ending is a happy one.
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A good story ruined by the narrator
- By i. Ski on 04-17-14
By: Anne Brontë
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The Dead Secret
- By: Wilkie Collins
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
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.
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Only complaint is I wish it were longer
- By alisammeredith on 03-15-22
By: Wilkie Collins
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Le Pere Goriot
- By: Honoré de Balzac
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
At the shabby boarding house in the rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève, petty Madame Vauquer and her tenants wonder at the plight of the aging resident Goriot. Once a well-heeled merchant, Goriot was, at first, afforded special treatment from the Madame. But now something is clearly amiss in his financial affairs, and his increasingly tawdry appearance makes him a subject of ridicule in the household.
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balzac rocks
- By beatrice on 03-12-10
By: Honoré de Balzac
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The Mill on the Floss
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Laura Paton
- Length: 20 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Maggie Tulliver has two lovers: Philip Wakem, son of her father’s enemy, and Stephen Guest, already promised to her cousin. But the love she wants most in the world is that of her brother Tom. Maggie’s struggle against her passionate and sensual nature leads her to a deeper understanding and to eventual tragedy
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Great compassion
- By nina lalumia on 12-26-16
By: George Eliot
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The House of the Seven Gables
- By: Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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A Classic Thriller
- By E. Pearson on 12-03-10
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Wuthering Heights
- An Audible Exclusive Performance
- By: Emily Brontë, Ann Dinsdale - introduction
- Narrated by: Joanne Froggatt, Rachel Atkins - introduction
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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Almost Peerless
- By Brad Simkulet on 02-04-18
By: Emily Brontë, and others
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Where Angels Fear to Tread
- Penguin English Library
- By: E. M. Forster
- Narrated by: Stephen Fry
- Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
E. M. Forster's first novel is a witty comedy of manners that is tinged with tragedy. It tells the story of Lilia Herriton, who proves to be an embarrassment to her late husband's family as, in the small Tuscan town of Monteriano, she begins a relationship with a much younger Italian man - classless, uncouth, and highly unsuitable. A subtle attack on Edwardian values and a humanely sympathetic portrayal of the clash of two cultures, Where Angels Fear to Tread is also a profound exploration of character and virtue.
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Stephen Fry + E.M. Forster = Audio Kismet
- By Megasaurus on 08-20-12
By: E. M. Forster
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Adam Bede
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Jill Tanner
- Length: 23 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Adam Bede (1859), George Eliot's first full-length novel, marked the emergence of an artist to rank with Scott and Dickens. Set in the English Midlands of farmers and village craftsmen at the turn of the 18th century, the book relates a story of seduction issuing in "the inward suffering which is the worst form of Nemesis". But it is also a rich and pioneering record - drawing on intimate knowledge and affectionate memory - of a rural world that we have lost.
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Very good book
- By Terri Tinkham on 03-11-19
By: George Eliot