Top 10 Classic Novels to read...

Have you missed out on classic literature and want to get to grips with it? Listening to them on Naxos AudioBooks is an excellent and relatively easy way to do it. Just let the some of the finest readers in the world introduce you to Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gustave Flaubert, Herman Melville, Thomas Hardy, Jonathan Swift...

Here is a Top 10 List to get you going. The best way to start is by listening to The History of English Literature by Perry Keenlyside, read by Derek Jacobi (4 CDs or download). Many of the writers Keenlyside discusses will be familiar – this set will place them all in context. You will start to get a feel for what you like particularly: maybe nineteenth century English novels, or Russian or American or French. You can start there, or go chronologically, as this list is ordered.

If you download any three of the following novels, email us at downloadshop@naxosaudiobooks.com and we will send you a link to The History of English Literature so you can download it for free!

Nicolas Soames

Top 10 Classic Novels (in order of date of publication)...

Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

By Jonathan Swift

Read by Neville Jason

A masterpiece of early satire.

CD RRP: £13.99, Download: £8.34
 
 

Pride and Prejudice (1813)

By Jane Austen

Read by Jenny Agutter

Elegant novel of manners and understatement.

CD RRP: £13.99, Download: £8.34
 
 

Jane Eyre (1847)

By Charlotte Brontë

Read by Emma Fielding

One of the great iconic English love stories: a governess gets her man.

CD RRP: £13.99, Download: £8.34
 
 

Wuthering Heights (1847)

By Emily Brontë

Read by Freda Dowie with Ken Drury

The other great English love story: passion on the moors.

CD RRP: £13.99, Download: £8.34
 
 

Moby Dick (1851)

By Herman Melville

Read by Bill Bailey

An obsessive hunt for the white whale.

CD RRP: £16.99, Download: £10.12
 
 

Madame Bovary (1857)

By Gustave Flaubert

Read by Imogen Stubbs

A woman consigned to small-town living is bent by her passion.

CD RRP: £16.99, Download: £10.12
 
 

Great Expectations (1860)

By Charles Dickens

Read by Anton Lesser

Gripping story of a boy in Victorian England.

CD RRP: £16.99, Download: £10.12
 
 

Crime and Punishment (1866)

By Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Read by Michael Sheen

Torment, conscience and principles as student considers the nature of murder.

CD RRP: £16.99, Download: £10.12
 
 

Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891)

By Thomas Hardy

Read by Imogen Stubbs

Injustice and love in the west country.

CD RRP: £13.99, Download: £8.34
 
 

Ulysses (1922)

By James Joyce

Read by Jim Norton and Marcella Riordan

A world in a day, 16 June 1904, Dublin.

CD RRP: £16.99, Download: £10.12
 
 

...and a treat:

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901)

By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Read by David Timson

Blood-curling encounters in the mist.

CD RRP: £19.99, Download: £11.90
 
 

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