Classics audiobooks

The Oresteia - Abridged

By: Aeschylus

Narrated by: a full cast

Length: 3 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The only complete trilogy to survive from ancient Greek theater is presented here in this sound recording of all three plays: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides.In the Oresteia, Aeschylus dramatizes the myth of the curse on the royal house of Argos. Action begins when King Agamemnon returns victorious from the Trojan War but is... Read more

Tales of Terror - Abridged

By: Edgar Allan Poe

Narrated by: David Thorn & Bruce Blau

Length: 6 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: Yes

American poet, critic, and short-story writer Edgar Allan Poe is universally recognized for his cultivation of the macabre in fiction. His stories are characterized by an original kind of supernatural horror, often using the awareness of death as a catalyzing force in its own right. His tales and poems brim with psychological depth and intense... Read more

Sweeney Todd and the String of Pearls - Abridged

By: Yuri Rasovsky

Narrated by: a full cast, Robertson Dean, Martin Jarvis, Moi...

Length: 2 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The insidious Fleet Street barber slit his first throat in an 1846 "penny dreadful," one of those gaudy serialized novels that gleefully offered thrills and gore to sensation-hungry Victorians. TitledThe String of Pearls, it told of Sweeney Todd, whose shop stood next to St. Dunstan's Church, just a few blocks from the Royal Courts of Justice.... Read more

The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson - Abridged

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: various narrators

Length: 5 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: Yes

David Wilson has earned the unfortunate nickname "Pudd'nhead" from his fellow townspeople, who fail to understand his combination of wisdom and eccentricity. However, he is eventually able to redeem himself by simultaneously solving a murder mystery and a case of transposed identities.Two children, a white boy and a mulatto, are born on the same... Read more

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - Abridged

By: Yuri Rasovsky

Narrated by: a full cast

Length: 1 hour 9 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Inspired by the classic silent film of 1919, this original audio play won the Independent Publishers Award in 1998 for best direct-to-audio production. John de Lancie stars as a young poet who visits a fair one night with his friend and girlfriend. Entering Dr. Caligari’s tent, they meet the mysterious Cesare, a kind of zombie, who is neither... Read more

Their Eyes Were Watching God - Abridged

By: Zora Neale Hurston

Narrated by: Ruby Dee

Length: TBA

Abridged: Yes

“A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don’t know how to live properly.” —Zadie SmithOne of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love... Read more

Brauseboys - Wir sind nur Kurzgeschichtenvorleser - Abridged

By: Brauseboys

Narrated by: Brauseboys

Length: 2 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Die Live-CD "Wir sind nur Kurzgeschichtenvorleser" versammelt die besten Texte und Lieder aus über drei Jahren Brauseboys. Eine wilde Fahrt mit 120 pbm (pointen pro minute) und immer auf der linken Spur mit hemmungslosen Einsatz der Lichthupe. "Unter den Berliner Lesebühnen brauchen sie sich nicht zu verstecken. Die Brauseboys sind... Read more

Neue Liebe, neues Leben - Abridged

By: Hans-Peter Bögel

Narrated by: Hans-Peter Bögel

Length: 55 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Zu allen Zeiten hat der Frühling die Komponisten in besonderer Weise inspiriert. Die freudigsten, lebensfrohen, liebevollsten Melodien sind im Frühling entstanden. Kompositionen wie Schumanns Frühlingssinfonie, Mendelssohn Bartholdys Frühlingslied oder Beethovens Frühlingssonate strömen eben die positive Kraft aus, die ein Neuanfang, die... Read more

The Picture of Dorian Gray

By: Oscar Wilde

Narrated by: Michael Page

Length: 7 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Featured title on PBS's The Great American Read in 2018When The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published in 1891, it evoked a tremendous amount of hostile criticism, in most part due to its immoral content. Oscar Wilde was identified with the “art for art’s sake” movement of the nineteenth century which did not subordinate art to ethical... Read more

Letters from Father Christmas

By: J. R. R. Tolkien

Narrated by: Derek Jacobi

Length: 2 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

The complete series of Father Christmas letters written by JRR Tolkien for his own children between 1920 and 1943. Can you imagine writing to Father Christmas and actually getting a reply? Every year, the children of J.R.R. Tolkien would write to Father Christmas, and the letters they received told wonderful stories of his... Read more

Huckleberry Finn

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: Ken Duken

Length: 5 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Huckleberry Finn knüpft dort an, wo Tom Sawyer aufhört: Huck, nach dem Abenteuer mit Tom zu Geld gekommen, wohnt bei der Witwe Douglas, die versucht ihn zu "zivilisieren". Von dort wird er von seinem Vater entführt, dem er durch die Vortäuschung seiner eigenen Ermordung entkommt. Ab diesem Zeitpunkt beginnen seine Abenteuer auf dem Mississippi,... Read more

Huckleberry Finn - Abridged

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: Ken Duken

Length: 5 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Huckleberry Finn knüpft dort an, wo Tom Sawyer aufhört: Huck, nach dem Abenteuer mit Tom zu Geld gekommen, wohnt bei der Witwe Douglas, die versucht ihn zu "zivilisieren". Von dort wird er von seinem Vater entführt, dem er durch die Vortäuschung seiner eigenen Ermordung entkommt. Ab diesem Zeitpunkt beginnen seine Abenteuer auf dem Mississippi,... Read more

Lolita

By: Vladimir Nabokov

Narrated by: Jeremy Irons

Length: 11 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

The most famous and controversial novel from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the story of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze.

“The conjunction of a sense of humor with a sense of horror [results in] satire of a very special kind.”—The New Yorker

One of The Atlantic’s... Read more

Deutsche Lyrik - Abridged

By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Rainer Maria Rilke,...

Narrated by: Achim Höppner & Anja Buczkowsky

Length: 1 hour 45 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Beginnend mit Walter von der Vogelweide bis hin zu Kurt Tucholsky wurden 50 Gedichte von 30 AutorInnen vertont. Es geht um Liebe, Tod und Leben, Sommer, Winter, Tag und Nacht, Tiefsinn wie Unsinn. In diesem Download u.a. enthalten: Erlkönig / Goethe Mondnacht / Eichendorff Nis Randers / Ernst Frau Rösel / Keller Herbstbild /... Read more

Tolstoy: Father Sergius & Other Short Stories

By: Leo Tolstoy

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 4 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

Tolstoy is perhaps best recognized as the author of the classic novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina. While he was able to sustain complex and moving plots though large novels, his ability as a great writer also is demonstrated in his many short stories. Tolstoy brings to these brief tales the same psychological depth and spiritual insight... Read more

Tolstoy: The Death of Ivan Ilyich & Master and Man

By: Leo Tolstoy

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 4 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

In these two famous short novels, Leo Tolstoy takes readers to the brink of despair. At the end of life worldly ambition offers no consolation for the spiritually empty soul. But Tolstoy is the master of themes of redemption. He turns his morbid topic into hope, leading toward spiritual awakening. Tolstoy offers his readers a lifetime of... Read more

Drei kurze Texte (mit tödlichem Ausgang) - Abridged

By: Peter Palizsch

Narrated by: Anne Moll, Germain Wagner & Ulrich Gebauer

Length: 1 hour 6 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Peter Palitzsch hat drei kurze Texte über Krieg, Gewalt und Emigration mit jeweils tödlichem Ausgang geschrieben, es ist sein erstes Drama überhaupt. In ihm geht es um das Beheimatetsein auf einer Erde, die zu oft ihre Kinder ausgespuckt hat, die nun umherirren, gerade auf der Suche nach dieser Heimat. Die drei Texte umreißen verschiedene... Read more

As I Lay Dying

By: William Faulkner

Narrated by: Various

Length: 6 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time

From the Modern Library’s new set of beautifully repackaged hardcover classics by William Faulkner—also available are Snopes, The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, and Selected Short Stories

One of William Faulkner’s finest novels, As I Lay Dying,... Read more

The Notebook

By: Nicholas Sparks

Narrated by: Barry Bostwick

Length: 6 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Experience the unforgettable, heartbreaking love story set in post-World War II North Carolina about a young socialite and the boy who once stole her heart -- one of PBS's "Great American Reads".

Every so often a love story so captures our hearts that it becomes more than a story -- it becomes an experience to remember forever. The Notebook is... Read more

Romeo und Julia (Ungekürzt)

By: William Shakespeare

Narrated by: Katharina Thalbach

Length: 3 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Das größte Liebesdrama der Weltliteratur: von jugendlichem Übermut und altem Hass. Das um 1595/96 entstandene Drama gilt als erste Liebestragödie der englischen Literatur und ist bis heute eines der erfolgreichsten Stücke von William Shakespeare. "Die Thalbach spricht alle Rollen, ist mit krächzender Stimme die komische Amme, gibt dunkel rauchig... Read more

The Sound and the Fury

By: William Faulkner

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 8 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century is the story of a family of Southern aristocrats on the brink of personal and financial ruin.  •  The definitive corrected text, including Faulkner's Appendix

One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years

The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the... Read more

The Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Audio Collection - Abridged

By: Kurt Vonnegut

Narrated by: Kurt Vonnegut

Length: 4 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. himself reads from his most celebrated works: Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, and three complete stories from Welcome to the Monkey House. Read more

The Sibyl

By: Pär Lagerkvist

Narrated by: Lorna Raver, Kristoffer Tabori & Yuri Rasovsky

Length: 4 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

In this powerful, poetic, and moving parable, the Wandering Jew of medieval Christian legend journeys to Delphi to consult the famed oracle of the pagans. He is turned away, but not before learning that one of the most adept of the old priestesses, or sibyls, lives in disgrace in the mountains above the temple. In her rude goat-hut he seeks the... Read more

Winesburg, Ohio

By: Sherwood Anderson

Narrated by: various narrators, Bruce Blau, David Thorn, Jim...

Length: 7 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

This timeless collection charted a new stylistic path for modern fiction. Through twenty-two connected short stories, Sherwood Anderson looks into the lives of the inhabitants of a small town in the American heartland. These psychological portraits of the sensitive and imaginative of Winesburg's population are seen through the eyes of a young... Read more