Résultats Éditeur "Naxos AudioBooks" dans Classiques

When a respected surgeon decides to transplant human body parts into a stray dog, he creates a monster - drunken, profligate, aggressive and selfish. It seems the worst aspects of the donor have been transplanted as well. As his previously well-regulated home descends into riotous chaos, the doctor realises he will have to try to reverse the operation; but the dog isn't so keen....

More preoccupied with drinking, sleeping, and writing, an unnamed student neglects his studies and invents three separate openings for a novel. The first introduces the Pooka MacPhellimey, "a member of the devil class", the second involves Mr. John Furriskey, a character belonging to another of the student's creations (writer Dermot Trellis), while the final opening features legendary Irish heroes Finn Mac Cool and Mad King Sweeny. Soon, Trellis' creations rebel against him, doing as they like while he sleeps, and the characters begin wandering in and out of each other's tales.

Ivanhoe has never been superseded as the epitome of chivalric novels. The brave knight comes from the Crusades to claim the Anglo-Saxon princess, Rowena, as his bride. But he becomes caught up in the feud between Prince John and his brother, Richard the Lionheart, who has returned to England incognito.

War and Peace is one of the greatest monuments in world literature. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, it examines the relationship between the individual and the relentless march of history. Here are the universal themes of love and hate, ambition and despair, youth and age, expressed with a swirling vitality which makes the story as accessible today as it was when it was first published in 1869.

Finnegans Wake, the greatest avant-garde novel of all time, was first published 70 years ago - and people are still trying to work out what it is about. There is Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker - aka HCE (Here Comes Everyone) - and Anna Livia Plurabelle, but also Finnegan the hod carrier (or was he a giant?), whose wake is the subject of the book. This is a masterly reading of the abridged version, with copious notes aiding comprehension.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a titanic among the world's great authors, and The Brothers Karamazov is often hailed as his finest novel. A masterpiece on many levels, it transcends the boundaries of a gripping murder mystery to become a moving account of the battle between love and hate, faith and despair, compassion and cruelty, good and evil.

Wilkie Collins' follow-up to The Woman in White and No Name is an innovative take on mistaken identity, the nature of evil, and the dark underbelly of Victorian England. The story concerns two distant cousins, both named Allan Armadale, and the impact of a family tragedy, which makes one of them a target of the murderous Lydia Gwilt, a vicious and malevolent charmer determined to get her hands on the Armadale fortune. Will the real Allan Armadale be revealed, and will he survive the plot against his life?

When Mr. Earnshaw brings a black-haired foundling child into his home on the Yorkshire moors, he little imagines the dramatic events which will follow. The passionate relationship between Cathy Earnshaw and the foundling, Heathcliff, is a story of love, hate, pity, and retribution, the effects of which reverberate throughout the succeeding generations.

Les Miserables is set in Paris after the French Revolution. In the sewers and back streets we encounter "the wolf-like tread of crime," and assassination for a few sous is all in a day's work. We weep with the unlucky and heartbroken Fantine, and exult with the heroic revolutionaries of the barricades; but above all we thrill to the steadfast courage and nobility of soul of ex-convict Jean Valjean, always in danger from the relentless pursuit of the diabolical Inspector Javert.

Now of that second kingdom I shall sing where human souls are purified of sin and made worthy to ascend to Heaven’ Purgatory is the second part of Dante’s The Divine Comedy ascending the terraces of the Mount of Purgatory inhabited by those doing penance to expiate their sins on earth. There are the proud – forced to circle their terrace for aeons bent double in humility; the slothful – running around crying out examples of zeal and sloth; while the lustful are purged by fire.

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Poe's only full novel, is one of his most unusual works. A riveting story, toldl in the first person, it tells of a disastrous sea voyage involving storms, mutiny, starvation, thirst - and a mysterious conclusion. Jorge Luis Borges and Baudelaire were among those who rated it highly. This recording was timed to mark the 200th anniversary of Poe's birth.

Written some 40 years after Moby Dick, Melville's Billy Budd is a moving tale of good versus evil. Set aboard a British navy ship at the end of the eighteenth century, a young, innocent sailor's charm and good nature put the men around him at ease. Ship life agreed with Billy. He made friends quickly and was well liked, which infuriated John Claggart, the ship's cold-blooded superior officer.

The powerful sense of evil – darkness, creepy hairy presences, cloaks, hoods, talons and tentacles – pervades these classic ghost stories by M.R. James. A Cambridge scholar himself, James explored what happens when academics dabble in things they don’t understand and unleash forces of which they know nothing.

Set in the days of the British Raj, Kipling's finest novel is the exciting and touching tale of an Irish orphan-boy who has lived free in the streets of Lahore before setting out, with a Tibetan Lama, on a spiritual quest. Kim later enrols in the Indian Service and simultaneously embarks on an espionage mission of supreme importance.

In these last two books, the ageing king faces the greatest challenge of his reign, when his own son threatens to overthrow him and destroy everything he has worked for. In The Book of Merlyn, Arthur's tutor Merlyn reappears, and the ancient magician teaches him that, even in the face of apparent ruin, there is still hope.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is the classic working-class novel. It was written in 1906 by an impoverished house painter, Robert Tressell, and within its framework contains a manifesto for socialism. It tells of the appalling working conditions of a group of painters and decorators and their struggle to survive at the most basic level. It is moving, grimly humorous and tragic. It has sold over six million copies worldwide since it was published, and it has the power to change lives.

Sons and Lovers, Lawrence's third published novel, was written by the author at the height of his literary powers. The story of class differences (the relationship between a middle-class woman and a miner) in the tough world of coal mining brought a refreshing realism to literature. It remains a challenging text and is studied widely. It is particularly effective on audiobook in the hands of Nottinghamshire reader Paul Slack.

Sensual, macabre, joyous and liberating, The Flowers of Evil, or Les Fleurs du Mal, is a beautifully debauched reflection on dreams, sin, life, and death. With subjects ranging from travel to drugs, sex to faith, sleep to contemplation, Baudelaire finds new beauty in the most sinister and corrupt of situations. His morbid and nightmarish Romanticism was completely unique: cynical and bleak, but also inspiring. The book was highly controversial upon its release and Napoleon III’s government prosecuted Baudelaire for "an insult to public decency".

Justine is the first volume in the Alexandria Quartet, four interlinked novels set in the sensuous, hot environment of Alexandria just before the Second World War. Within this polyglot setting of richly idiosyncratic characters is Justine, wild and intense, wife to the wealthy businessman Nessim, a Mari complaisant. Her emotional and sexual wildness fuels a highly charged atmosphere.

Having submitted himself to Freudian psychoanalysis, the narrator keeps a diary with the aim of conquering his addiction to smoking. He describes his marriage to the woman he didn't want to marry, how he drives his business partner to despair, and how his "last cigarette" turns out to be one of many. Zeno is the classic "schlemiel"; his erratic foibles, his questionable logic, and his curious inclination to self sabotage help shine a light on human behavior in general, and reveal the many subtle half-truths people may tell themselves in order to defend their own actions and egos.