-
The Provincial Lady in Wartime
- Narrated by: Georgina Sutton
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
The Provincial Lady in Wartime, though the last of the Provincial Lady series, is one of the finest.
No further ‘Diaries’ had appeared since The Provincial Lady in America (published in 1934) when, in 1939, Harold Macmillan, then chairman of Macmillan publishers and a fan, made a personal request to E. M. Delafield for a new book. The onset of the war with Germany was serious, but, he said, Britain, was in need of the entertaining but pertinent observations from the Provincial Lady!
Delafield duly set to work and produced the longest and in a way the most interesting of the ‘Diaries’ without losing its sense of fun, of seemingly casual frivolity.
The Provincial Lady in Wartime covers a short time - from 1 September 1939 (just before the declaration of war on 3 September) to 21 November 1939, when fact again met fiction and E. M. Delafield was really ‘called up’ to work for the Ministry of Information. As a result, the focus in the book was on the ‘Phoney War’ when the country found itself in a fever of preparation without the intense action that was to follow a short time after.
The Provincial Lady finds herself in London, looking for voluntary work to support the war effort, which proves an unexpectedly difficult thing to achieve. Her interactions with a varied host of companions, also caught up in a strange frenzy, reflect so clearly the mood and tension of the time, yet the account is witty, apposite - and so very English, with the stiff upper lip underpinning it all.
This book is both hugely entertaining and a faithful portrait of the months before hostilities began in earnest - as seen, of course, from the quirky eyes and particular milieu of the Provincial Lady, whom we have come to love and admire. Sad, then, that it was to be the last ‘Diary’. However, this recording also contains The Provincial Lady in Russia, the three articles Delafield wrote for Harper’s Magazine in 1937 covering her three-month visit to the USSR. These deft pieces of more personal journalism are again witty, observant and informative, showing how ably Delafield combines a light touch with more serious conclusions.
The three essays are:
- 'The Provincial Lady in Moscow' (Harper's Magazine, January 1937)
- 'They Also Serve: The Provincial Lady in Leningrad' (Harper's Magazine, February 1937)
- 'To Speak My Mind About Russia: The Provincial Lady in Odessa' (Harper's Magazine, March 1937)
As always, Georgina Sutton serves E. M. Delafield so well, with a vivacious yet perfectly placed reading.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Bunburry 1-3
- A Cosy Mystery Compilation
- By: Helena Marchmont
- Narrated by: Nathaniel Parker
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In "Murder at the Mousetrap," the first Bunburry book, fudge-making and quaffing real ale in the local pub are matched by an undercurrent of passion, jealousy, hatred and murder - laced with a welcome dose of humour. Alfie McAlister has retreated from London to the peace and quiet of the country to recover from a personal tragedy. But an accidental death - which may have been no accident - reveals that the heart of England is far from the tranquil backwater he imagined.
-
-
Lovely, sweet story and superb narration
- By Laura Stone on 01-19-20
By: Helena Marchmont
-
Miss Buncle's Book
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Patricia Gallimore
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The scene of this entertaining story is laid in a charming English village. The plot centres round Miss Barbara Buncle, a maiden lady who was obliged to write a book because – as she naively explained – her dividends were so poor. Unfortunately, Miss Buncle had no imagination, so she wrote about her friends – quite kindly and truthfully, of course, for she was a benevolent and veracious soul.
-
-
A complete pleasure
- By Sara on 01-16-14
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
Something Fresh
- By: P. G. Wodehouse
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Wodehouse himself once noted, "Blandings has impostors like other houses have mice." On this particular occasion, there are two imposters, both intent on a dangerous enterprise. Lord Emsworth's secretary, the Efficient Baxter, is on the alert and determined to discover what is afoot - despite the distractions caused by the Honorable Freddie Threepwood's hapless affair of the heart.
-
-
Not terrible - but not a must-have, either
- By SGW555 on 10-18-07
By: P. G. Wodehouse
-
Mydworth Mysteries 1-3
- A Cosy Historical Mystery Compilation 1
- By: Matthew Costello, Neil Richards
- Narrated by: Nathaniel Parker
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the authors of the best-selling series "Cherringham". This compilation contains episodes 1-3. "A shot in the dark": Sussex, England, 1929. Mydworth is a sleepy English market town just 50 miles from London. But things are about to liven up there considerably, when young Sir Harry Mortimer returns home from his government posting in Cairo, with his unconventional American wife - Kat Reilly. "A little Night murder": A young poacher is found shot dead in the woods of a grand estate near Mydworth. A sad accident it would seem.
-
-
Rather simple mysteries
- By Amazon Customer on 11-16-21
By: Matthew Costello, and others
-
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Christine Rendel
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vivacious, young Hester Christie tries to run her home like clockwork, as would befit the wife of British Army officer, Tim Christie. However hard Mrs Tim strives for seamless living amidst the other army wives, she is always moving flat-out to remember groceries, rule lively children, side-step village gossip and placate her husband with bacon, eggs, toast and marmalade. Left alone for months at a time whilst her husband is with his regiment, Mrs Tim resolves to keep a diary of events large and small in her family life.
-
-
Life as a military wife
- By Jerri C on 03-09-13
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
Barbara Pym: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Some Tame Gazelle, No Fond Return of Love, Crampton Hodnet & More
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes, Hannah Gordon, Samantha Bond, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Pym is one of the 20th-century's wittiest, and most underrated, novelists. Her perceptive comedies of manners, centred around the domestic lives and loves of unassuming middle-class Englishwomen, won her many devoted readers and saw her hailed as a modern-day Jane Austen. Yet she spent 15 years out of print in the 1960s and '70s, until Philip Larkin championed her work in the Times Literary Supplement. Her seventh novel was subsequently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and writers from Jilly Cooper to Alexander McCall Smith continue to laud her talent today.
-
-
A Wonderful Find
- By Martha Alston on 05-24-22
By: Barbara Pym
-
Bunburry 1-3
- A Cosy Mystery Compilation
- By: Helena Marchmont
- Narrated by: Nathaniel Parker
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In "Murder at the Mousetrap," the first Bunburry book, fudge-making and quaffing real ale in the local pub are matched by an undercurrent of passion, jealousy, hatred and murder - laced with a welcome dose of humour. Alfie McAlister has retreated from London to the peace and quiet of the country to recover from a personal tragedy. But an accidental death - which may have been no accident - reveals that the heart of England is far from the tranquil backwater he imagined.
-
-
Lovely, sweet story and superb narration
- By Laura Stone on 01-19-20
By: Helena Marchmont
-
Miss Buncle's Book
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Patricia Gallimore
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The scene of this entertaining story is laid in a charming English village. The plot centres round Miss Barbara Buncle, a maiden lady who was obliged to write a book because – as she naively explained – her dividends were so poor. Unfortunately, Miss Buncle had no imagination, so she wrote about her friends – quite kindly and truthfully, of course, for she was a benevolent and veracious soul.
-
-
A complete pleasure
- By Sara on 01-16-14
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
Something Fresh
- By: P. G. Wodehouse
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Wodehouse himself once noted, "Blandings has impostors like other houses have mice." On this particular occasion, there are two imposters, both intent on a dangerous enterprise. Lord Emsworth's secretary, the Efficient Baxter, is on the alert and determined to discover what is afoot - despite the distractions caused by the Honorable Freddie Threepwood's hapless affair of the heart.
-
-
Not terrible - but not a must-have, either
- By SGW555 on 10-18-07
By: P. G. Wodehouse
-
Mydworth Mysteries 1-3
- A Cosy Historical Mystery Compilation 1
- By: Matthew Costello, Neil Richards
- Narrated by: Nathaniel Parker
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the authors of the best-selling series "Cherringham". This compilation contains episodes 1-3. "A shot in the dark": Sussex, England, 1929. Mydworth is a sleepy English market town just 50 miles from London. But things are about to liven up there considerably, when young Sir Harry Mortimer returns home from his government posting in Cairo, with his unconventional American wife - Kat Reilly. "A little Night murder": A young poacher is found shot dead in the woods of a grand estate near Mydworth. A sad accident it would seem.
-
-
Rather simple mysteries
- By Amazon Customer on 11-16-21
By: Matthew Costello, and others
-
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Christine Rendel
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vivacious, young Hester Christie tries to run her home like clockwork, as would befit the wife of British Army officer, Tim Christie. However hard Mrs Tim strives for seamless living amidst the other army wives, she is always moving flat-out to remember groceries, rule lively children, side-step village gossip and placate her husband with bacon, eggs, toast and marmalade. Left alone for months at a time whilst her husband is with his regiment, Mrs Tim resolves to keep a diary of events large and small in her family life.
-
-
Life as a military wife
- By Jerri C on 03-09-13
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
Barbara Pym: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Some Tame Gazelle, No Fond Return of Love, Crampton Hodnet & More
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes, Hannah Gordon, Samantha Bond, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Pym is one of the 20th-century's wittiest, and most underrated, novelists. Her perceptive comedies of manners, centred around the domestic lives and loves of unassuming middle-class Englishwomen, won her many devoted readers and saw her hailed as a modern-day Jane Austen. Yet she spent 15 years out of print in the 1960s and '70s, until Philip Larkin championed her work in the Times Literary Supplement. Her seventh novel was subsequently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and writers from Jilly Cooper to Alexander McCall Smith continue to laud her talent today.
-
-
A Wonderful Find
- By Martha Alston on 05-24-22
By: Barbara Pym
-
The Wintringham Mystery
- Cicely Disappears
- By: Anthony Berkeley, Tony Medawar
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stephen Munro, a demobbed army officer, reconciles himself to taking a job as a footman to make ends meet. Employed at Wintringham Hall, the delightful but decaying Sussex country residence of the elderly Lady Susan Carey, his first task entails welcoming her eccentric guests to a weekend house-party, at which her bombastic nephew—who recognises Stephen from his former life—decides that an after-dinner séance would be more entertaining than bridge. Then Cicely disappears!
-
-
Charming Light-hearted mystery
- By Carolyn on 10-04-21
By: Anthony Berkeley, and others
-
Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories
- A Miss Marple Collection
- By: Agatha Christie
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Miss Marple: The Complete Story Collection gathers together in one magnificent volume all of Agatha Christie’s short stories featuring her beloved intrepid investigator, Miss Marple. It’s an unparalleled compendium of murder, mayhem, mystery, and detection that represents some of the finest short form fiction in the crime fiction field, and is an essential omnibus for Christie fans.
-
-
Classic Miss Marple - uneven narration
- By Lyric G. Eads on 11-09-22
By: Agatha Christie
-
The Complete Mapp and Lucia, Volume 1
- By: E. F. Benson
- Narrated by: Georgina Sutton
- Length: 26 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sharply observant and wickedly funny, E.F. Benson's six Mapp and Lucia novels satirize the upper-middle-class social climbers in 1920s and '30s rural England. Games of bridge and cups of tea fuel hilarious gossip and vindictive plots a-plenty. It is a masterfully sustained spotlight on the minutiae of village life - a clever and ultimately heart-warming series that seems tailor-made for audio. Volume 1 contains the first three books.
-
-
At last!
- By Grace M-T on 06-15-21
By: E. F. Benson
-
The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax
- By: Dorothy Gilman
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mrs. Virgil (Emily) Pollifax of New Brunswick, New Jersey, was a widow with grown children. She was tired of attending her Garden Club meetings. She wanted to do something good for her country. This first in the series sends Emily on her first case after she successfully persuades a skeptical CIA recruitment officer that she is the best person for the job.
-
-
Masterful writing and incredible narration
- By Barbara on 01-14-12
By: Dorothy Gilman
-
Daniel Deronda
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 36 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meeting by chance at a gambling hall in Europe, the separate lives of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth are immediately intertwined. Daniel, an Englishman of uncertain parentage, becomes Gwendolyn's redeemer as she finds herself drawn to his spiritual and altruistic nature after a loveless marriage. But Daniel's path was already set when he rescued a young Jewess from suicide.
-
-
Give it a try!
- By Tucker LaPrade on 01-30-16
By: George Eliot
-
The Josephine Tey Collection: 6 Alan Grant Novels; Brat Farrar; & Miss Pym Disposes
- The Man in the Queue; A Shilling for Candles; The Franchise Affair; To Love and Be Wise; The Daughter of Time; The Singing Sands; Miss Pym Disposes; Brat Farrar
- By: Josephine Tey
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 61 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Josephine Tey Collection includes unabridged recordings of Tey's 8 major novels in one audiobook, including all 6 of the novels in the Inspector Alan Grant series.
-
-
Thank you Audible - best spent credit ever
- By Lynn on 05-14-23
By: Josephine Tey
-
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
- By: Alexander McCall Smith
- Narrated by: Lisette Lecat
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mma "Precious" Ramotswe sets up a detective agency in Botswana on the edge of the Kalahari Desert, making her the only female detective in the country. At first, cases are hard to come by. But eventually, troubled people come to Precious with a variety of concerns. Potentially philandering husbands, seemingly schizophrenic doctors, and a missing boy who may have been killed by witch doctors all compel Precious to roam about in her tiny van, searching for clues.
-
-
Transcends its Genre
- By Gene on 12-07-03
-
The Shuttle
- By: Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Narrated by: Katharine Brooks
- Length: 19 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"The Shuttle" (1907) is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Sir Nigel Anstruthers comes to New York to search an heiress, as he no longer has enough money to keep up his estate, Stornham Court. He marries the pretty and treasured Rosalie, the daughter of an American millionaire. But on their return to England, Nigel and his mother control and isolate Rosalie from her family. Many years later, Rosalie's sister Bettina, who has spent a decade wondering why Rosy has lost contact with the family, arrives at Stornham Court to investigate.
-
-
Listen without delay
- By E.J.H. on 01-23-24
-
Agatha Christie
- An Elusive Woman
- By: Lucy Worsley
- Narrated by: Lucy Worsley
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was "just" an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn't? Lucy Worsley's biography is not just of a massively, internationally successful writer. It's also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman. With access to rarely seen personal letters and papers, Lucy Worsley's biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realize what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was—truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.
-
-
A delight and a revelation
- By theenglishmajor on 12-02-22
By: Lucy Worsley
-
Marple: Twelve New Mysteries
- By: Agatha Christie, Naomi Alderman, Leigh Bardugo, and others
- Narrated by: Alex Kingston, Adjoa Andoh, Miriam Margolyes, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jane Marple is an elderly lady from St Mary Mead who possesses an uncanny knack for solving even the most perplexing puzzles. Now, for the first time in 45 years, Agatha Christie’s beloved character returns to the page for a globe-trotting tour of crime and detection. Join Marple as she travels through her sleepy English village and around the world. In St Mary Mead, a Christmas dinner is interrupted by unexpected guests; the Broadway stage in New York City is set for a dangerous improvisation.
-
-
Hit or miss Marple
- By rich on 09-15-22
By: Agatha Christie, and others
-
The Cazalets
- The Epic Full-Cast BBC Radio Dramatisation
- By: Elizabeth Jane Howard, Sarah Daniels, Lin Coghlan
- Narrated by: Penelope Wilton, Full Cast
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Penelope Wilton narrates BBC Radio 4’s epic dramatisation of the treasured family saga Elizabeth Jane Howard’s five book chronicle of the upper-middle class. Cazalet family begins in 1938, as siblings Hugh, Edward, Rupert and Rachel join together for another family holiday at Home Place, their house in the Sussex countryside. During the course of The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, Casting Off and All Change, the progress of their lives, and those of their children, will be charted.
-
-
Return to Home Place
- By Adeliese Baumann on 10-31-14
By: Elizabeth Jane Howard, and others
-
Laura
- By: Vera Caspary
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel, Eileen Stevens, Oliver Wyman, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Laura Hunt was the ideal modern woman: beautiful, elegant, highly ambitious, and utterly mysterious. No man could resist her charmsnot even the hardboiled NYPD detective sent to find out who turned her into a faceless corpse. As this tough cop probes the mystery of Lauras death, he becomes obsessed with her strange power.
-
-
I like this a lot.
- By JSL on 07-10-10
By: Vera Caspary
Related to this topic
-
The Complete Mapp and Lucia, Volume 1
- By: E. F. Benson
- Narrated by: Georgina Sutton
- Length: 26 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sharply observant and wickedly funny, E.F. Benson's six Mapp and Lucia novels satirize the upper-middle-class social climbers in 1920s and '30s rural England. Games of bridge and cups of tea fuel hilarious gossip and vindictive plots a-plenty. It is a masterfully sustained spotlight on the minutiae of village life - a clever and ultimately heart-warming series that seems tailor-made for audio. Volume 1 contains the first three books.
-
-
At last!
- By Grace M-T on 06-15-21
By: E. F. Benson
-
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Christine Rendel
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vivacious, young Hester Christie tries to run her home like clockwork, as would befit the wife of British Army officer, Tim Christie. However hard Mrs Tim strives for seamless living amidst the other army wives, she is always moving flat-out to remember groceries, rule lively children, side-step village gossip and placate her husband with bacon, eggs, toast and marmalade. Left alone for months at a time whilst her husband is with his regiment, Mrs Tim resolves to keep a diary of events large and small in her family life.
-
-
Life as a military wife
- By Jerri C on 03-09-13
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
High Rising
- A Virago Modern Classic
- By: Angela Thirkell, Alexander McCall Smith - introduction
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Successful lady novelist Laura Morland and her boisterous young son, Tony, set off to spend Christmas at her country home in the sleepy surrounds of High Rising. But Laura's wealthy friend and neighbor, George Knox, has taken on a scheming secretary whose designs on marriage to her employer threaten the delicate social fabric of the village.
-
-
Beginning of a journey
- By Jerri C on 11-04-16
By: Angela Thirkell, and others
-
The Diary of a Nobody
- By: George Grossmith, Weedon Grossmith
- Narrated by: Martin Jarvis
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Diary of Nobody (1892) created a cultural icon, an English archetype. Anxious, accident-prone, occasionally waspish, Charles Pooter has come to epitomize English suburban life. His diary chronicles encounters with difficult tradesmen, the delights of home improvements, small parties, minor embarrassments, and problems with his troublesome son. The suburban world he inhabits is hilariously and painfully familiar in its small-mindedness and its essential decency.
-
-
Hilarious and Suprebly Read
- By Virginia Waldron on 10-15-08
By: George Grossmith, and others
-
Rose
- My Life in Service to Lady Astor
- By: Rosina Harrison
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1928, Rosina Harrison arrived at the illustrious household of the Astor family to take up her new position as personal maid to the infamously temperamental Lady Nancy Astor, who sat in Parliament, entertained royalty, and traveled the world. "She's not a lady as you would understand a lady" was the butler's ominous warning. But what no one expected was that the iron-willed Lady Astor was about to meet her match in the no-nonsense, whip-smart girl from the country.
-
-
AWFUL!! I was very disappointed.
- By The Louligan on 08-12-13
By: Rosina Harrison
-
Excellent Women
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Jayne Entwistle
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. She is one of those excellent women - the smart, supportive, repressed women whom men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors - anthropologist Helena Napier; Helen's handsome, dashing husband, Rocky; and Julian Malory, the vicar next door - the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived.
-
-
Still Waters Run Deep
- By Sara on 04-13-16
By: Barbara Pym
-
The Complete Mapp and Lucia, Volume 1
- By: E. F. Benson
- Narrated by: Georgina Sutton
- Length: 26 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sharply observant and wickedly funny, E.F. Benson's six Mapp and Lucia novels satirize the upper-middle-class social climbers in 1920s and '30s rural England. Games of bridge and cups of tea fuel hilarious gossip and vindictive plots a-plenty. It is a masterfully sustained spotlight on the minutiae of village life - a clever and ultimately heart-warming series that seems tailor-made for audio. Volume 1 contains the first three books.
-
-
At last!
- By Grace M-T on 06-15-21
By: E. F. Benson
-
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Christine Rendel
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vivacious, young Hester Christie tries to run her home like clockwork, as would befit the wife of British Army officer, Tim Christie. However hard Mrs Tim strives for seamless living amidst the other army wives, she is always moving flat-out to remember groceries, rule lively children, side-step village gossip and placate her husband with bacon, eggs, toast and marmalade. Left alone for months at a time whilst her husband is with his regiment, Mrs Tim resolves to keep a diary of events large and small in her family life.
-
-
Life as a military wife
- By Jerri C on 03-09-13
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
High Rising
- A Virago Modern Classic
- By: Angela Thirkell, Alexander McCall Smith - introduction
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Successful lady novelist Laura Morland and her boisterous young son, Tony, set off to spend Christmas at her country home in the sleepy surrounds of High Rising. But Laura's wealthy friend and neighbor, George Knox, has taken on a scheming secretary whose designs on marriage to her employer threaten the delicate social fabric of the village.
-
-
Beginning of a journey
- By Jerri C on 11-04-16
By: Angela Thirkell, and others
-
The Diary of a Nobody
- By: George Grossmith, Weedon Grossmith
- Narrated by: Martin Jarvis
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Diary of Nobody (1892) created a cultural icon, an English archetype. Anxious, accident-prone, occasionally waspish, Charles Pooter has come to epitomize English suburban life. His diary chronicles encounters with difficult tradesmen, the delights of home improvements, small parties, minor embarrassments, and problems with his troublesome son. The suburban world he inhabits is hilariously and painfully familiar in its small-mindedness and its essential decency.
-
-
Hilarious and Suprebly Read
- By Virginia Waldron on 10-15-08
By: George Grossmith, and others
-
Rose
- My Life in Service to Lady Astor
- By: Rosina Harrison
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1928, Rosina Harrison arrived at the illustrious household of the Astor family to take up her new position as personal maid to the infamously temperamental Lady Nancy Astor, who sat in Parliament, entertained royalty, and traveled the world. "She's not a lady as you would understand a lady" was the butler's ominous warning. But what no one expected was that the iron-willed Lady Astor was about to meet her match in the no-nonsense, whip-smart girl from the country.
-
-
AWFUL!! I was very disappointed.
- By The Louligan on 08-12-13
By: Rosina Harrison
-
Excellent Women
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Jayne Entwistle
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. She is one of those excellent women - the smart, supportive, repressed women whom men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors - anthropologist Helena Napier; Helen's handsome, dashing husband, Rocky; and Julian Malory, the vicar next door - the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived.
-
-
Still Waters Run Deep
- By Sara on 04-13-16
By: Barbara Pym
-
Cakes and Ale
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: James Saxon
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Cakes and Ale was first published in 1930 it roused a storm of controversy, since many people imagined they recognised portraits of literary figures now no more. It is the novel for which Maugham wished to be remembered.
-
-
Delightful
- By RueRue on 04-22-16
-
The Quest for Queen Mary
- By: James Pope-Hennessy, Hugo Vickers - editor
- Narrated by: Tim Bentinck, Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The highly acclaimed unexpurgated notes taken by James Pope-Hennessy for his official biography of Queen Mary, the present Queen's grandmother. Published in full for the first time and edited by much-admired royal biographer Hugo Vickers. When James Pope-Hennessy began his work on Queen Mary's official biography, it opened the door to meetings with royalty, court members and retainers around Europe. The series of candid observations, secrets and indiscretions contained in his notes were to be kept private for 50 years....
-
-
obscure but poor gold
- By Dr. A. on 11-20-18
By: James Pope-Hennessy, and others
-
A Handful of Dust
- By: Evelyn Waugh
- Narrated by: Andrew Sachs
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Evelyn Waugh's 1934 novel is a bitingly funny vision of aristocratic decadence in England between the wars. It tells the story of Tony Last, who, to the irritation of his wife, is inordinately obsessed with his Victorian Gothic country house and life. When Lady Brenda Last embarks on an affair with the worthless John Beaver out of boredom with her husband, she sets in motion a sequence of tragicomic disasters that reveal Waugh at his most scathing.
-
-
Slow Start then Subtle
- By Michael on 05-16-15
By: Evelyn Waugh
-
The Enchanted April
- By: Elizabeth von Arnim
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is a journey of both escape and discovery for four exquisitely different women, a month of bliss and privacy for four weary souls. Their refuge on the Italian Riviera provides the perfect backdrop for a story about the search for spiritual harmony within and without.
-
-
Excellent book, excellent narrator
- By Amazon Customer on 02-26-05
-
The Pursuit of Love
- Radlett and Montdore Trilogy Series, Book 1
- By: Nancy Mitford
- Narrated by: Bessie Carter
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mitford's most enduringly popular novel, The Pursuit of Love, is a classic comedy about growing up and falling in love among the privileged and eccentric. Mitford modeled her characters on her own famously unconventional family. We are introduced to the Radletts through the eyes of their cousin, Fanny, who stays with them at Alconleigh, their Gloucestershire estate. Uncle Matthew is the blustering patriarch; Aunt Sadie is the vague but doting mother; and the seven Radlett children, despite the delights of their unusual childhood, are recklessly eager to grow up.
-
-
Unlistenable
- By Michael on 10-17-21
By: Nancy Mitford
-
Decline and Fall
- By: Evelyn Waugh
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sent down from Oxford after a wild, drunken party, Paul Pennyfeather is oddly surprised to find himself qualifying for the position of schoolmaster at a boys' private school in Wales. His colleagues are an assortment of misfits, rascals and fools, including Prendy (plagued by doubts) and Captain Grimes, who is always in the soup (or just plain drunk). Then Sports Day arrives, and with it the delectable Margot Beste-Chetwynde, floating on a scented breeze.
-
-
Black Humor, Satire, and the Absurd
- By Gypsi on 06-09-18
By: Evelyn Waugh
-
Jeeves & Wooster: The Collected Radio Dramas
- By: P. G. Wodehouse
- Narrated by: full cast, Michael Hordern, Richard Briers
- Length: 17 hrs and 56 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A rollicking collection of six acclaimed dramatisations of P.G Wodehouse's Jeeves & Wooster novels, starring Michael Hordern and Richard Briers as Jeeves and Wooster. Also featuring Maurice Denham, Paul Eddington, David Jason, John Le Mesurier, Miriam Margolyes, Jonathan Cecil, Liza Goddard and Patrick Cargill.
-
-
tracks out of order
- By Justin Sluyter on 06-02-19
By: P. G. Wodehouse
-
Something Fresh
- By: P. G. Wodehouse
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Wodehouse himself once noted, "Blandings has impostors like other houses have mice." On this particular occasion, there are two imposters, both intent on a dangerous enterprise. Lord Emsworth's secretary, the Efficient Baxter, is on the alert and determined to discover what is afoot - despite the distractions caused by the Honorable Freddie Threepwood's hapless affair of the heart.
-
-
Not terrible - but not a must-have, either
- By SGW555 on 10-18-07
By: P. G. Wodehouse
-
Daddy-Long-Legs
- By: Jean Webster
- Narrated by: Kate Forbes
- Length: 4 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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!
-
-
Delightful
- By Greg and Sara Masarik on 04-06-15
By: Jean Webster
-
The Girls of Slender Means
- By: Muriel Spark
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 3 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Long ago in 1945 all the nice people in England were poor, allowing for exceptions." Thus begins Muriel Spark's tragic and rapier-witted portrait of a London ladies' hostel just emerging from the shadow of World War II. Like the May of Teck Club building itself - "three times window shattered since 1940 but never directly hit" - its lady inhabitants do their best to act as if the world were back to normal, practicing elocution and jostling over suitors and a single Schiaparelli gown.
-
-
please please try again
- By Consolation on 03-24-20
By: Muriel Spark
-
Servants' Hall
- A Real Life Upstairs, Downstairs Romance
- By: Margaret Powell
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margaret Powell's Below Stairs became a sensation among listeners reveling in the luxury and subtle class warfare of Masterpiece Theatre's hit television series Downton Abbey. Now in the sequel Servants' Hall, Powell tells the true story of Rose, the under-parlourmaid to the Wardham Family at Redlands, who took a shocking step: She eloped with the family's only son, Mr. Gerald.
-
-
Memoir of a Bygone Era
- By Michelle N. Lynch on 04-08-15
By: Margaret Powell
-
The Diary of a Nobody
- By: George Grossmith
- Narrated by: Geoffrey Palmer
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written as the diary of someone who would not normally merit a memoir but considers that he should have one written about him anyway, The Diary of a Nobody chronicles in agonizing but very funny detail everyday life in the lower middle class suburbs of Victorian England and the attempts of a social climber to better himself. It was published in 1892. First published in the satirical magazine Punch as a serial between 1888 and 1889, with illustrations by the author’s brother, Weedon.
-
-
Outstanding performance
- By pandajama on 01-11-20
By: George Grossmith