The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
by Mark Twain
Read by Garrick Hagon
UNABRIDGED

This is the story of a boy’s adventures growing up in a small town on the banks of the Mississippi river over a hundred years ago. The cheerful, adventurous hero plays truant to form a pirate band and, together with his best friend Huckleberry Finn, finds fun and excitement, and buried treasure, along the shores of the great river.
 
 
 

The Witch in the Wood & The Ill-Made Knight
by T. H. White
Read by Neville Jason
UNABRIDGED

These two stories are the second and third parts of T. H. White’s classic and individual fantasy novel of the Arthurian legend. Arthur has become king, Guinevere and Lancelot (The Ill-Made Knight) fall in love, and the kingdom is threatened from the north. Neville Jason reads with measured authority.
 
 
 

Tess of the d’Urbervilles
By Thomas Hardy
Read by Anna Bentinck
UNABRIDGED

Socially critical and emotionally complex, Tess of the d’Urbervilles is Hardy’s masterpiece. It tells the story of Tess Durbeyfield, forced by her family’s poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D’Urbervilles. Violated by the son Alec, her hopes of rebuilding her life with the gentle and bookish Angel Clare founder when he learns of her past. Sensitively read by Anna Bentinck.
 
 
 

To the Lighthouse
By Virginia Woolf
Read by Juliet Stevenson
UNABRIDGED

To The Lighthouse is a landmark work of English fiction. Virginia Woolf explores perception and meaning in some of the most beautiful prose ever written, minutely detailing the characters’ thoughts and impressions. This unabridged version is read by Juliet Stevenson, whose abridged version has proved one of the enduring sellers of the Naxos AudioBooks catalogue.
 
 
 

The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
Volume II
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Read by David Timson
UNABRIDGED

This set of six stories completes the Sherlock Holmes canon recorded unabridged with exceptional skill by David Timson. The Sherlock Holmes Newsletter has said that Timson’s recordings are the finest ever made by a solo reader. The set also contains a new Sherlock Holmes story – written by Timson himself!
 
 
 

The Woman in White
by Wilkie Collins
Read by Glen McCready, Rachel Bavidge, and cast

Wilkie Collins’ most popular novel, The Woman in White is a suspense and mystery novel, told in a series of reports by the main characters. Walter Hartright, a drawing teacher to two sisters, wants to marry Laura though she is betrothed to another. But who is the mysterious woman in white who he encounters? A multi-cast recording of this fine abridgement.
 
 
 

The Wealth of Nations
By Adam Smith
Read by Sean Barrett

Adam Smith (1723–90) has come to contemporary prominence with his picture on the £20 note. It was Smith who first established economics as a separate branch of knowledge, and many would say his work has never been surpassed. The Wealth of Nations, which appeared in 1776, is the definitive text.
 
 
 

Our Mutual Friend (abridged)
by Charles Dickens
Read by David Timson

David Timson received considerable praise for his vivid characters in the unabridged recording of Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend. This is now presented in a more accessible format offering particularly good value. A mysterious boatman on the Thames, a drowned heir, a dustman and his wife, and a host of other Dickens characters populate this novel of relationships between the classes, money, greed and love.
 
 
 

The Enchanted Castle
By Edith Nesbit
Read by Joanna Page

Edith Nesbit’s stories remain popular in the twenty-first century. Three children – Jerry (bossy), Jimmy (hungry) and Kathleen (sensible) – find themselves standing in front of a bejewelled princess in the garden of an enchanted castle. It is the first day of their summer holidays. Is she really a princess? And if she isn’t, what about her ring which makes the wearer invisible?
 
 
 

What Katy Did
by Susan Coolidge
Read by Laurel Lefkow

Meet Katy Carr. She’s impulsive, gangly, adventurous, awkward and brave; she loves clambering over fences, sitting on roofs, making up games or going for picnics with her five brothers and sisters (much to the horror of her Aunt Izzie). But when she falls from a swing, she suddenly has to cope with being stuck indoors – maybe for ever. What Katy Did is fresh, lively, funny and moving; and Katy herself is a warm and loving character that readers have taken to their hearts for over a hundred and thirty years.
 
 
 

The Great Poets – William Wordsworth
Read by Jasper Britton and Oliver Ford Davies

The Great Poets series launched in 2007 has proved very popular, offering many of the best-loved poems by popular poets in an inexpensive one CD collection – and well read by leading actors. This anthology of the leading ‘Lake Poet’, with poems that many can still recite, will undoubtedly become a best-seller. The collection includes I wondered lonely as a cloud , I travelled among unknown men, My heart leaps up and Tintern Abbey.
 
 
 

The Great Poets – Percy Bysshe Shelley
Read by Bertie Carvel

The Great Poets series launched in 2007 has proved very popular, offering many of the best-loved poems by popular poets in an inexpensive one CD collection – and well read by leading actors. This anthology, containing poems that many can still recite, will undoubtedly prove among the top-sellers. The collection includes including Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, and To a Skylark.
 
 
 

The Sword in the Stone
by T. H. White
Read by Neville Jason
UNABRIDGED

One of the most inventive and charming retellings of the Arthurian legend, the first part of The Once and Future King. Through a series of adventures that involve being turned into animals, an encounter with a very hungry witch and a meeting with the real Robin Hood, Merlyn instructs Wart (Arthur) and his brother Sir Kay in the ways of the world, and broader wisdom too. One of them will need it – the King has died leaving no heir, and a rightful one must be found by pulling a sword from an anvil resting on a stone...
 
 
 

The Lost World
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Read by Glen McCready
UNABRIDGED

Somewhere in South America, there is a plateau; and roaming in its forests are dinosaurs. Only one man has ever been there, and his reports are so astonishing that no-one is prepared to believe him; except the extraordinary Professor Challenger. He decides to take a trip to prove beyond doubt that this lost world really exists. With the daredevil journalist Edward Malone, meticulous, sceptical Professor Summerlee and the professional adventurer Lord John Roxton, Challenger sets out on a mission as dangerous as it is thrilling. Inspiring endless imitations, The Lost World is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic adventure of discovery.
 
 
 

Aristotle – An Introduction
by Hugh Griffith
Read by Hugh Ross, and Roy McMillan

In his introduction to Aristotle, Hugh Griffith follows the successful pattern established with his An Introduction to Ancient Greek Philosophy: lively introductions explaining the background before generous sections of original text. The two principal works drawn upon are Politics and The Nichomachean Ethics, (topics include marriage, education, government) two treatises which still have a strong effect on thought today. In addition, Griffith inserts three sections from Animals – for Aristotle was one of the first to codify animals, correctly putting dolphins and whales with mammals (they give birth to live young) rather than fish.
 
 
 

The Great Poets – Emily Dickinson
Read by Teresa Gallagher

Though known principally as the miniaturist in American poetry, Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) produced a remarkably wide body of work – some concentrating on acute observations and some on bons mots. Full of wit and sensitivity, she generally appears in anthologies but this generous collection shows that she is a poet to be taken seriously.
 
 
 

The Great Poets – John Milton
Read by Samantha Bond and Derek Jacobi

This thoughtful collection of John Milton’s finest poetry marks the quatercentenary of the poet’s birth in 1608. It is read by two leading classical actors: Samantha Bond (perhaps most widely known as Miss Moneypenny!) and Derek Jacobi, one of the foremost British actors of his generation. Milton’s uncompromising views set him firmly on the side of Cromwell, putting his life in danger when the Stuart monarchy was restored. But he is now remembered for Paradise Lost and a strong collection of other poetry which influenced successive generations. This CD offers an ideal overview, including excerpts from the major works, including Comus and Samson Agonistes, as well as famous poems such as On his blindness.
 
 
 

The Death of Ivan Ilyich
by Leo Tolstoy
Read by Oliver Ford Davies
UNABRIDGED

Though famous for the massive War and Peace, Tolstoy was equally adept at shorter forms as is shown by this novella. Ivan Ilyich Golovin is a high court judge in St Petersburg who lives a carefree life. One day, without warning, he is beset by pains and soon has to come to terms with the fact that he is going to die. The judge has to learn to face death without fear and yet feel compassion for the family he is leaving behind.
 
 
 

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
A new verse translation by Benedict Flynn
Read by Jasper Britton

One of the greatest stories of English literature from any period, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a magical medieval combination of the epic and the uncanny. A mysterious knight all in green arrives at King Arthur’s court and issues a bizarre challenge. Gawain answers the knight – but at what cost? This new translation keeps all the poetic power of the original’s extraordinary alliteration. In doing so it brings the saga vividly to life, and in a manner that demands to be heard.
 
 
 

Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Read by Jasper Britton
UNABRIDGED

Treasure Island must be the most enthralling adventure book ever written. The action and adventure never falter, and the spell of this enduring story is sustained until the very last word.
 
 
 

The Moonlit Road
and other chilling stories
by Ambrose Bierce, J. S. Le Fanu, F. Marion Crawford
Read by Jonathan Keeble and Clare Anderson

Five chilling stories in the classic nineteenth-century tradition. The Moonlit Road and That Damned Thing are vintage Bierce, and accompany lesser-known yet powerful English tales.
 
 
 

The Great Poets – W. B. Yeats
Read by Jim Norton, Denys Hawthorne, Marcella Riordan, and Nicholas Boulton

Here are many of the finest poems by W. B. Yeats (1865–1939) read by a superb cast lead by Olivier award-winner Jim Norton. Down by the Salley Gardens, The Lake Isle of Inisfree, The Secret Rose and many others are included.
 
 
 

The Great Poets – John Keats
Read by Samuel West and Michael Sheen

Here are many of the finest poems by John Keats (1795–1821), read by two leading British actors. To Autumn, Ode on Melancholy, Ode to a Nightingale, La Belle Dame Sans Merci and many others are included.
 
 
 

Cranford
by Elizabeth Gaskell
Read by Clare Wille
UNABRIDGED

In the village of Cranford, decorum is maintained at all times. Despite their poverty, the ladies are never vulgar about money (or their lack of it), and always follow the rules of propriety. But this discretion and gentility does not keep away tragedy; and when the worst happens, the Amazons of Cranford show the true strength of their honest affections. A masterpiece of social comedy, Cranford is as moving as it is funny, and as sharp as it is tender.
 
 
 

Villette
by Charlotte Brontë
Read by Mandy Weston
UNABRIDGED

Long overshadowed by Jane Eyre, Villette is widely admired as one of Charlotte Brontë’s finest works. This story of a young teacher at a girl’s school in the city of Villette is a particular challenge for the young reader for it requires maturity of vision, a fine narrative sense – and a command of French! Mandy Weston, a newcomer to Naxos AudioBooks, tells the story magnificently.
 
 
 

Dance Dance Dance
by Haruki Murakami
Read by Rupert Degas

Quirky characters, a hotel with a phantom floor, sexy girls, rock music, especially Talking Heads – this gloriously imaginative romp around contemporary Japan defies description. Cult novelist with a huge international following, but also with a serious literary reputation, Haruki Murakami gains more fans with each book. Dance, Dance, Dance is one of his finest and most loved. Reader Rupert Degas received extreme plaudits for his other Murakami recordings, both A Wild Sheep Chase and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.
 
 
 

The Odyssey (abridged)
by Homer
Read by Anton Lesser

The Trojan war is over and Odysseus, the cunning king of Ithaca, sets out for home, his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. It proves a long, ten-year journey, fraught with dangers, from Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclops, and the seductive Sirens, to the love of Calypso on her all-too-comfortable isle. When he arrives in Ithaca, he has to contend with a group of suitors who have been pressing his wife to forget about her husband, admit she is a widow, and marry one of them.
 
 
 

A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
by Julian Barnes
Read by Alex Jennings

A History of the World in 10½ Chapters tells a series of apparently unconnected stories ranging from a woodworm’s-eye-view of the journey on Noah’s Ark to an astronaut’s quest for its final resting place. There is pastiche and learned disquisition; there is heart-stopping documentary and heart-lifting revelation.
 
 

A Family Christmas
A Child’s Christmas in Wales, The Nutcracker, The Little Match Girl, and other Christmas favourites
Read by Philip Madoc, Jenny Agutter, Benjamin Zephaniah and others

The tree, the fireside, the candles, the presents and the festive food may be the main features of the traditional Christmas, but so were the stories, the poems, and the traditional tales. Here, is a delightful confection of Christmas texts: the story of The Nutcracker told with Tchaikovsky’s immortal music, Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales, as well as nineteenth and twentieth century poems and the always affecting tale of The Little Match Girl. An enchanting collection for those family Christmas evenings.
 
 

Classic Ghost Stories
by Charles Dickens and M.R. James
Read by Stephen Critchlow

Perhaps you have heard of the warning ”Not suitable for those of a nervous disposition”. This collection of Ghost stories written by the masters of their craft, are guaranteed to give you’re disposition a thorough shaking up.
 
 

The Iliad (abridged)
by Homer
Read by Anton Lesser

This new and exciting translation of Homer’s epic war poem, The Iliad, is told with excitement and character by Anton Lesser. The poem concentrates on the key fifty days during the ten-year war, when there is strife not only between the Greeks and the defending Trojans, but also within the Greek forces themselves. The mighty warrior Achilles, angry with Agamemnon, withdraws from the battle and only returns to face Hector when his close companion Patroclus is killed. This abridged version offers the key moments.
 
 

Mansfield Park
by Jane Austen
Read by Juliet Stevenson

Mansfield Park is the longest of Jane Austen’s six major novels. Fanny Price moves from poverty to the opulence of Mansfield Park at the age of ten when she is adopted by rich relations. But as she grows up she finds she is constantly contending with the burden of her past as her relatives try to keep her in place.
 
 

The Story of the Amulet
by Edith Nesbit
Read by Anna Bentinck

The trilogy of Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet and The Story of the Amulet, all involving the same family and their encounters with the magical being The Psammead, proved one of the most popular of Nesbit’s books. This text centres around the purchase of an ancient Amulet which can grant them their heart’s desire – the return of their parents – but which first sets them on a journey through time to ancient Babylon, Egypt and Atlantis. Anna Bentinck’s engaging reading captures the excitement and tension of the text.
 
 

Pollyanna
by Eleanor. H. Porter
Read by Laurel Lefkow

Since it first appeared in 1913, Pollyanna has become an enduring favourite with children. The tale of an orphan who maintains a strongly positive view on the world despite adversity has a strong affect on readers of all ages, even in the twenty-first century – and especially when read with such warmth by Laurel Lefkow.
 
 

The Spiritual Verses
by Jalaloddin Rumi
Translated by Alan Williams, Read by Anton Lesser

Rumi’s Spiritual Verses is the greatest mystical poem in Islamic culture and of all time. Rumi tells of our human separation from reality, love and truth.
 
 

The Trial
by Franz Kafka
Read by Rupert Degas
UNABRIDGED

The Trial is one of the great works of the twentieth century: an extraordinary vision of one man put on trial by an anonymous authority on an unspecified charge.
 
 

Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
Read by Anton Lesser
UNABRIDGED

Narrated in the first person, Great Expectations tells the story of Philip Pirrip (known as Pip) from his disadvantaged start as an orphan in the Kent marshes to the improvement in his position following an anonymous allowance. Pip moves to London where, only after many trials, does he learn humility and the value of loyalty.
 
 

The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes – Volume 1
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Read by David Timson
UNABRIDGED

These six cases are taken from the end of Sherlock Holmes’s career as a detective and involve theft, murder and the threat of a vampire.
 
 

The Prophet & The Wanderer
by Khalil Gibran
Read by Robert Glenister
UNABRIDGED

The two finest collections of Sufi stories which have become widely loved classics throughout the world.
 
 

The Great Poets – William Blake
by William Blake
Read by Robert Glenister, Michael Maloney, and Stephen Critchlow
UNABRIDGED

William Blake, poet, painter and visionary, is perhaps best known for some key poems including Tyger and Jerusalem. This selection contains all of his popular works.
 
 

The Great Poets – Rudyard Kipling
by Rudyard Kipling
Read by Robert Glenister, Michael Maloney, and Robert Hardy
UNABRIDGED

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) is one of Britain’s most popular poets. If, Mandalay, Gunga Din and many others even now speak to a wide range of people.
 
 

Little Lord Fauntleroy
by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Read by Teresa Gallagher

Cedric, an American boy, becomes the heir to a British earldom and moves from New York to his ancestral castle.
 
 

The Moon of Gomrath
by Alan Garner
Read by Philip Madoc
UNABRIDGED

In this sequel to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Colin and Susan again find themselves caught in the web of evil Morrigan. Philip Madoc continues the story.
 
 

The Odyssey
by Homer
Read by Anton Lesser
UNABRIDGED

The Trojan War is over and Odysseus, the cunning King of Ithaca, sets out for home, his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. It proves a long, 10-year journey, fraught with dangers, from Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclops, and the seductive Sirens, to the love of Calypso on her all-too-comfortable isle.
 
 

Ancient Greek Philosophy – An Introduction
Compiled by Tom and Hugh Griffith
Read by Bruce Alexander and Crawford Logan

The philosophy of Ancient Greece provides the background of Western ethical thought and politics. In this approachable introduction, Hugh Griffith, a leading translator of Plato, covers the main ground from the Pre-Socratics through Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and the Epicureans.
 
 
 

Our Mutual Friend
By Charles Dickens
Read by David Timson
UNABRIDGED

A mysterious boatman on the Thames, a drowned heir, a dustman and his wife, and a host of other Dickens characters populate this novel of relationships between the classes, money, greed and love.
 
 

Bleak House
By Charles Dickens
Read by Sean Barrett and Teresa Gallagher

The long, drawn-out case of Jarndyce versus Jarndyce provides the background to this novel which takes us into Dickens’ world of impoverished people on the street, lovers fallen on hard times and the grand riches of the upper classes.
 
 

A Bad Birdwatcher’s Companion
Written and read by Simon Barnes

Simon Barnes is one of Britain’s leading bird writers and humorists. His weekly column in The Times, his essays for the RSPB magazine and his two books on bad bird-watching have made him one of the characters of the bird world.

For extra information, Simon Barnes’ booklet notes and podcast, visit the bad birdwatcher minisite.

 
 

The Valley of Fear
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Read by David Timson
UNABRIDGED

David Timson brings his remarkable performance skills to one of Doyle’s full-length novels.
They arrive too late to save a life and then pursue the trail which leads to the unmasking of the murderer.
 
 

More Classic American Short Stories
by Ambrose Bierce, Kate Chopin, James Fenimore Cooper, Stephen Crane, and O. Henry
Read by Garrick Hagon and Liza Ross

Here are eight stories from master American writers of the nineteenth century. They vary from sinister tales by Ambrose Bierce, to classic short stories by O. Henry and Stephen Crane.
 
 

The Third Policeman

By Flann O’Brien

Read by Jim Norton

Flann O’Brien’s most popular and surrealistic novel comes to life in a new unabridged recording.
 
 

More Famous Composers

By Darren Henley

Read by Marin Alsop

Darren Henley and the Naxos AudioBooks team bring the combination of an entertaining but informative ‘life’ and numerous musical selections to a further set of six composers.
 
 

Great Scientists and their Discoveries

By David Angus

Read by Benjamin Soames and Clare Corbett

This companion volume to Inventors and their Inventions introduces the work of ten men ranging from the world of Ancient Greece to the twentieth century discovery of DNA.
 
 

Persuasion

By Jane Austen

Read by Juliet Stevenson

Anne Elliot has grieved for seven years over the loss of her first love, Captain Frederick Wentworth. Events conspire to unravel the knots of deceit and misunderstanding in this beguiling and gently comic story of love and fidelity.
 
 

Sacred Elephant

By Heathcote Williams

Read by Heathcote Williams, with Caroline Webster and Harry Burton

This poem explores the life of elephants in their natural habitat and in captivity, and details their relentless destruction at the hands of man. Evocatively read by the author.
 
 

The Pardoner’s Tale

By Geoffrey Chaucer

Read by Richard Bebb

Three tales from The Canterbury Tales, read in the original Middle English by Richard Bebb under the direction of Britain’s foremost Chaucer scholar, Derek Brewer.
 
 

after the quake

By Haruki Murakami

Read by Rupert Degas, Teresa Gallagher, and Adam Sims

UNABRIDGED

In 1995, the Japanese city of Kobe suffered a massive earthquake. Nearly 6,000 people died. after the quake was the imaginative response from Japan’s leading novelist, Haruki Murakami: six stories, each dealing not directly with the catastrophe but the wider seismic effect it had on the emotional lives of people many miles away.
 
 

Whale Nation

By Heathcote Williams

Read by Heathcote Williams, with Harry Burton and Caroline Webster

UNABRIDGED

Whale Nation is a hymn to the beauty, intelligence and majesty of the largest mammal on earth. A ‘green classic’ read with natural resonance by its author, it rarely fails to strike a chord in the hearts of those concerned with the abuse of our planet.