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Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Cranford is set in a small market town populated largely by a number of respectable ladies. It tells of their secrets and foibles, their gossip and their romances as they face the challenges of dealing with new inhabitants to their society and innovations to their settled existence. It was first published between 1851 and 1853 as episodes in Charles Dickens’ Journal Household Words. Appended to this recording is a short sequel, The Cage at Cranford, written ten years later and published in the journal All the Year Round. In a letter to Mrs. Gaskell, Charlotte Bronte wrote: “Thank you for your letter, it was as pleasant as a quiet chat, as welcome as spring showers, as reviving as a friend’s visit; in short, it was very like a page of Cranford.”… Cranford is a genteel and humorous look at Victorian society by Elizabeth Gaskell, and is quite a change from her more gritty novels like Mary Barton or North and South.

8 Hours and 53 Minutes.

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David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The story is told almost entirely from the point of view of the first person narrator, David Copperfield himself, and was the first Dickens novel to be written as such a narration. The story deals with the life of David Copperfield from childhood to maturity. David’s father had died six months before he was born, and seven years later, his mother remarries but David and his step-father don’t get on and he is sent to boarding school. As David settles into life we are taken along with him and meet a dazzling array of characters, some of whom we will never forget and some of whom we won’t want to remember!

31 Hours and 58 Minutes.

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Emma by Jane Austen

Emma Woodhouse, aged 20 at the start of the novel, is a young, beautiful, witty, and privileged woman in Regency England. She sadly is also rather spoiled, headstrong, and self-satisfied; she greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities, is blind to the dangers of meddling in other people’s lives, and her imagination and perceptions often lead her astray. Her indulgent father and lack of a mother have left her spoiled and used to getting her own way. Emma’s only true critic and voice of reason is Mr. Knightley, a gentleman whose opinion she values greatly, and who cares deeply for her, but whose affection she does not see, while seeking to play matchmaker in the lives of others. She delights in meddling in the romantic affairs of everyone around her, thinking celibacy is a privilege she alone can enjoy, by virtue of her social standing. Happily, in the end, Emma is forced to acknowledge both her own lack of proper insight into the motives of others, and admit her need for a companion who can challenge her to become a better woman.

16 Hours and 21 Minutes.

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Fairytales and Short Stories Volume 1 by Hans Christian Andersen

A collection of works by Danish author and poet, Hans Christian Andersen, who is most famous for his fairy tales. Chapters include: The Tinder-Box, Little Claus and Big Claus, The Princess and the Pea, Little Ida’s Flowers, Little Tiny or Thumbelina, The Saucy Boy, The Travelling Companion, The Little Mermaid Parts 1 & 2, The Emperor’s New Suit, The Galoshes of Fortune Parts 1 & 2, The Daisy, The Brave Tin Soldier, The Wild Swans, The Garden of Paradise, The Flying Trunk, The Storks, The Elf of the Rose, What the Moon Saw Parts 1, 2, & 3, The Wicked Prince, The Metal Pig, The Shepherd’s Story of the Bond of Friendship, A Rose from Homer’s Grave, The Buckwheat, Ole-Luk-Oie, the Dream-God, and The Swineherd.

9 Hours and 24 Minutes.

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Fairytales and Short Stories Volume 2 by Hans Christian Andersen

Volume 2 of the collection of works by Danish author and poet, Hans Christian Andersen, who is most famous for his fairy tales. Chapters include: The Angel, The Nightingale, The Ugly Duckling, The Top and Ball, The Fir Tree, The Snow Queen Parts 1-3, The Little Elder-Tree Mother, The Elfin Hill, The Red Shoes, The Jumper, The Shepherdess and the Sweep, Holger Danske, The Bell, Grandmother, The Darning-Needle, The Little Match-Seller, The Sunbeam and the Captive, By the Almshouse Window, The Old Street Lamp, The Neighboring Families, Little Tuk, and The Shadow.

6 Hours and 7 Minutes.

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Fairytales and Short Stories Volume 3 by Hans Christian Andersen

Volume 3 of the collection of works by Danish author and poet, Hans Christian Andersen, who is most famous for his fairy tales. Chapters include: The Old House, The Drop of Water, The Happy Family, The Story of a Mother, The Shirt Collar, The Flax, The Phoenix Bird, A Story, The Puppet-Show Man, The Dumb Book, The Old Gravestone, The Conceited Apple Branch, The Loveliest Rose in the World, In a Thousand Years, The Swan’s Nest, The Story of the Year, There Is No Doubt About It, A Cheerful Temper, A Great Grief, Everything in the Right Place, The Goblin and the Huckster, Under the Willow Tree, The Pea Blossom, and She was Good for Nothing.

4 Hours and 7 Minutes.

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Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney

When Phronsie is kidnapped by an organ grinder, she is rescued by young Jasper King and his dog Prince, both of whom soon become fast friends with the Peppers. The family so charms Jasper and his father that soon they invite the family to live with them. Mr. King makes Mrs. Pepper his housekeeper and does everything in his power to entertain and educate the children. Though the Kings surround the Pepper children with luxury, the values of hard work, humility, and togetherness are still firmly enforced by their mother. Though they live with an upper-class father and son, the older children are aware they’ll someday work for their livings. The stories of the Pepper family have delighted children for generations!

6 Hours and 57 Minutes.

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Further Chronicles of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery

A collection of short stories by L.M. Montgomery famed author of the Anne of Green Gables Series. Further Chronicles of Avonlea is the enjoyable sequel to Chronicles of Avonlea lightly featuring some of our favorite characters including Anne, Rachel Lynde, and Matthew Cuthbert , but mostly vignettes of other inhabitants of Avonlea, and the surrounding area. The book includes fifteen short and entertaining, funny and romantic stories, including: “Aunt Cynthia’s Persian Cat”, “The Materializing of Cecil”, “The Dream-Child”, “The Little Brown Book of Miss Emily”, “The Conscience Case of David Bell”, and many more. The tales will delight the reader and make a perfect addition to the Avonlea section of their bookshelf!

6 Hours and 37 Minutes.

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Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

In one of Charles Dickens’ most beloved stories, Philip Pirrip, known as “Pip”, narrates his own journey, from the hindsight of 50 years.

Pip grows up with his older sister after losing his parents at a very early age. His sister, a tough unloving woman, rules Pip and her gentle husband Joe with an iron hand. During Pip’s 7th year, while playing in the marshes, he is accosted by an escaped criminal whom he decides to help by stealing food from his own home. But the convict is caught and returned to prison.

Miss Havisham, an eccentric, rich recluse, sends for Pip to come to her house to play with Estella, a haughty and rude girl about his age. Although Pip is ashamed of himself as a poor uneducated boy, he is fascinated by Estella. A few years later, he becomes apprenticed to Joe, a blacksmith, but dreams of becoming rich and clever and marrying Estella. A stranger, Mr. Jaggers, arrives to inform him that he has come into a handsome property, and will be removed from his present home to be brought up as a gentleman. The benefactor is kept secret, but Pip is sure it must be Miss Havisham.

In London, he acquires a tutor, grand new clothes and the lifestyle he always wanted. However, life is complicated as a gentleman in society, and he finds himself very unhappy, as Estella remains indifferent to him, involved with someone else. Pip begins overspending his generous allowance, and worse, spurns his old friends. Then unexpected problems from his past arise, and begin to transform his attitude.

19 Hours and 58 Minutes.

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Heidi by Johanna Spyri

A warm and loving story, full of touching moments, Heidi, transports the listener from the fine air and freedom of the mountaintop, to the confines of the bustling city of Frankfurt, then back to the peaks again, bounding in flowered fields with goats at your heels and sky utterly surrounding you. We meet Heidi when she is 5, led up the mountain by her aunt who has raised the orphan, but must leave now for a position in Frankfurt. In a mountain cottage overlooking the valley Heidi meets, and is now to live with, her grandfather, thought to be a hard and eccentric man by the nearby villagers. It is Heidi and her sweet and free nature that touches and softens the heart of the old man, bringing about a deep and touching bond between the two. When Heidi is taken from the mountains and nearly doesn’t make it back again, the most humorous as well as most heart-wringing scenes occur. All she learns during her absence from the mountain she brings back as seeds that will grow to benefit everyone around her. The  story of Heidi is filled with the child’s wonder, devotion, and sometimes humorous good intentions, the endearing traits that have lead the book to become a favorite among classic children’s literature.

9 Hours and 34 Minutes.

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