Showing results by author "Lina" in All Categories

Beowulf was composed by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet. Francis Barton Gummere translates this beautiful poem. Beowulf is an epic poem. The main character, Beowulf, proves himself a hero as he battles against supernatural demons and beasts. (Summary by Tad E.)

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain is one of the truly great American novels, beloved by children, adults, and literary critics alike. The book tells the story of “Huck” Finn (first introduced as Tom Sawyer’s sidekick in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer), his friend Jim, and their journey down the Mississippi River on a raft. Both are on the run, Huck from his drunk and abusive father, and Jim as a runaway slave.As Huck and Jim drift down the river, they meet many colorful characters and have many great adventures. The true heart of the story, however, is the friendship ...

Published in 1879, this play was a bombshell, exposing the tragic hypocrisy of Victorian like middle class marriage. The play is significant for the way it deals with the fate of a married woman, who at the time in Norway lacked reasonable opportunities for self-fulfillment in a male-dominated world. - A wife was almost literally a bird in a cage for display by the husband. Note that this is a solo reading of the entire play by one person. We have an excellent dramatic reading of this play in our catalog also if a more traditional performance is more to your taste.) Summary by phil c

The quiet Dutch community of Sleepy Hollow lay in the Adirondack mountains on the western shore of the mighty Hudson River in America’s colonial period. The solitude of the woods was breathtaking, and not even a schoolmaster was immune from the eerie miasma which everyone knew permeated the dense forest. Written in 1820, Washington Irving’s The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow has become a classic of American literature, and has been retold in many different ways. Here is the original, from Irving’s own hand. (Summary by Chip)

NOTE: Because of the nature of this project, there was a bending of usual LibriVox procedures: pub-like background noise was encouraged, as well as group readings; and no editing was required, so in places there may be some accidental variation from the original text ... Listener be warned! Here is some more information about the genesis of the LibriVox Ulysses project. (Summary by Hugh McGuire)Still one of the most radical novels of the 20th Century, James Joyce's Ulysses is considered to have ushered in the era of the modern novel. Loosely based on Homer's Odyssey, the book follows Leopold ...

"A Christmas Carol" has been credited with relaunching the celebration of Christmas as we know it. It relaunched Charles Dickens' literary career, that is for sure! More than that, and more importantly, it is an illustration of one "covetous old sinner" and his opportunity for redemption in the eyes of both God and man. For me the book holds a special meaning for it repeatedly shows me that no matter how I often I may make mistakes, mercy and forgiveness are there for the asking. - Summary by Greg Giordano

Set in 1925, this is a novel of the Jazz Age; of ambition, of the careless rich, of wild parties and flappers and bootleg booze; and the efforts of a dreamer to reunite with his lost love. - Summary by Kara

A Study in Scarlet, a short novel published in 1887, was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes story. At the beginning of the book, Dr. Watson meets the detective for the first time and we ride along with them to the scene of a murder. The crime baffles the Scotland Yard detectives, but of course Holmes solves it easily. In the second half of the story, the scene shifts to Utah as we learn the murderer's history. The action returns to London in the last two chapters. In his first adventure, Holmes demonstrates many of the traits for which he later became well known: meticulous study ...

This great and terrifying poem about the final weeks of a long war fought between the Greeks and the Trojans before the city of Troy (here rendered into prose by Samuel Butler, himself a major nineteenth century English novelist) is at once violently graphic, emotionally searing and strikingly contemporary in its understanding of the extremities to which rage may drive men, even as they understand full well that they are pursuing their own doom. Nearly three thousand years before the advent of cinema, the author(s) of The Iliad had already mastered many of the tropes the Hollywood blockbuster ...

The Prince (Italian: Il Principe) is a political treatise by the Italian diplomat, historian and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. The descriptions within The Prince have the general theme of accepting that ends of princes, such as glory, and indeed survival, can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends. (Introduction by Wikipedia)

These 37 short stories were authored by John Habberton (1842–1921), an American writer. He spent nearly twenty years as the literary and drama critic for the New York Herald, but he is best known for his stories about early California life, many of which were collected in this 1880 book. - Summary by david wales

I am Roderick Random. This is the contemporary story of my struggle against the adversity of orphan-hood, poverty, press gangs, bloody duels, rival fortune hunters, and the challenge to be well-dressed through it all. In the course of recounting my adventures to you, dear reader, I will give you a front row seat to the characters of English eighteenth century life including highway robbers, womanizing monks, debt-laden gallants, lecherous corrupt officials, effeminate sea captains, bloodthirsty surgeons, and my dear friend Miss Williams, a reformed prostitute. Educated in the classics, armed ...

The Metamorphosis (in German, Die Verwandlung, "The Transformation") is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915, and arguably the most famous of his works along with the longer works The Trial and The Castle. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into a giant "monstrous vermin". (Summary from Wikipedia)

A delightful version of Alice's Adventures following that scurrying Rabbit with the watch that is shortened for the enjoyment of younger children. She meets all of the strange talking animals (and they are just as rude or silly as usual) and eats and drinks from all of the bottles and grows and shrinks alarmingly just like in the longer version. Enjoy. (Summary by the reader, Phil Chenevert)

Let's continue the D'Artagnan Romances that we've already started with The Three Musketeers.

Tom Jones is considered one of the first prose works describable as a novel. The novel is divided into 18 smaller books. Tom Jones is a foundling discovered on the property of a very kind, wealthy landowner, Squire Allworthy. Tom grows into a vigorous and lusty, yet honest and kind-hearted, youth. He develops affection for his neighbor's daughter, Sophia Western. On one hand, their love reflects the romantic comedy genre popular in 18th-century Britain. However, Tom's status as a bastard causes Sophia's father and Allworthy to oppose their love; this criticism of class friction in society ...

Few things, even in literature, can really be said to be unique — but Moby Dick is truly unlike anything written before or since. The novel is nominally about the obsessive hunt by the crazed Captain Ahab of the book’s eponymous white whale. But interspersed in that story are digressions, paradoxes, philosophical riffs on whaling and life, and a display of techniques so advanced for its time that some have referred to the 1851 Moby Dick as the first “modern” novel.(Summary by Stewart Wills)

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (11 November 1633 – 5 April 1695) was an English statesman, writer, and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1660, and in the House of Lords after he was raised to the peerage in 1668. He's noted in history for his views on Charles II among others. This compilation covers a wide range of his views which are particularly telling, coming, as they do, from a man who was singularly positioned among the powers of the time, to make them. Prepare yourself for a journey into antiquated English speech. (Summary by Wikipedia and John Greenman)

This story follows the lives of four sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. Set in the tumultuous days of the American Civil war, readers grow to love the four sisters as they grow and mature into young women. This book has characters any girl can relate to because each of the four March sisters has a unique and different personality. A story that the young and old have enjoyed for years, this book truly is a classic. (Summary by Abigail Rasmussen)

Leo Tolstoy’s epic historical novel chronicling the Napoleonic war in Russia. Considered one of the greatest works of literature of all time. Translated by Aylmer and Louise Maude.Volume 1 includes Book 1 through Book 3, covering the year 1805.Volume 2 includes Book 4 through Book 8, covering the years 1806 to 1812.Volume 3 includes Book 9 through Book 11, covering the year 1812.Volume 4 includes Book 12 through Book 17, covering the years 1812 to 1820. - Summary by the reader