British Classics

Stanley Kubrick hailed The Shining as 'the scariest horror film of all time' before its release in 1980. Though the film opened to poor reviews, it has since become one of the most admired horror films in cinema history. Exerting an enormous influence on popular culture, The Shining has spawned a vast array of interpretations and conspiracy theories. Roger Luckhurst's illuminating study explores the film's themes, tropes and resonances through a detailed analysis of sequences and performances.

The first volume in Paul Scott's historical tour-de-force opens in 1942 as the British fear both Japanese invasion and Indian demands for self-rule. In the Mayapore gardens, Daphne Manners, daughter of the provincial governor, leaves her Indian lover, who will soon be arrested for her alleged...

Christmas should be a joyous time. But this year the celebration is overshadowed in sickness, sorrow, and disappointment. Seeing her grandmother struggle with pain and sadness, Emily decided to share a story that she's never told anyone. As old memories live again through her words, two broken...

A gripping narrative of one of the great survival stories of American history: the opening of the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Drawing on period letters and chronicles, and on the papers of the Virginia Company–which financed the settlement of Jamestown–David Price...

The author of Heartstone once again infuses elements of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with her own brand of magic in this addictive fantasy that brings back sparring lovers Aliza and Alastair: fierce warriors who match wits, charm, and swords as they fight an epic war to save their world. The...

Penguin Classics presents Jane Austen's Emma, adapted for audio and now available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by the actress Fiona Shaw. 'I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall' Beautiful, clever...

"A powerful story beautifully told, highly recommended on audio." -AudioFile Magazine What Souls Are Made Of, British Fantasy Award-winning author Tasha Suri's masterful new take on Brontë's Wuthering Heights, will leave listeners breathless. Sometimes, lost things find their way home...

When Dr Raymond Ferens moves to a practice at Milham in the Moor in north Devon, he and his wife are enchanted with the beautiful hilltop village lying so close to moor and sky. At first they see only its charm, but soon they begin to uncover its secrets - envy, hatred and malice. Everyone says that Sister Monica, warden of a children's home, is a saint - but is she? A few months after the Ferens' arrival her body is found drowned in the mill-race. Chief Inspector Macdonald faces one of his most difficult cases in a village determined not to betray its dark secrets to a stranger.

Stanley Featherstonehough Ukridge is positively convinced that his complete ignorance of chicken farming gives him a particular advantage in the subject. A bombastic blowhard, he persuades his wife and his mild-mannered chum to start a chicken farm with him. What could go wrong?

A stunning speculative novel about a small English village preparing of the end of the world. Edgar Hopkins is a retired math teacher with a strong sense of self-importance, whose greatest pride is winning poultry-breeding contests. When not meticulously caring for his Bantam, Edgar is an active...

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore are as different as England and America themselves, and yet almost two centuries later these two iconic tales remain an important part of Christmas tradition all over the world. Now they are brought together in this very special holiday recording.

Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers star in 10 rare episodes of The Goon Show, plus a plethora of bonus features.

This volume follows the fates of the Laytons and a retired missionary teacher, all of whom can foresee the end of the Raj--and both welcome and lament its passing...

Four classic stories featuring bold and daring protagonists, abridged especially for young listeners: Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, The Railway Children, The Secret Garden. Hours of audio fun to keep children entertained while on the move! Introduce your children to four classic stories...

In this ingenious stand-alone thriller from the internationally bestselling author and “razor sharp” master of suspense (People), a grieving wife is forced to ask: Which is worse—infidelity or murder? Ellie Falkner’s world has been destroyed. Her husband, Greg, died in a car crash—and...

Ridley Scott's dystopian classic Blade Runner, an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, combines noir with science fiction to create a groundbreaking cyberpunk vision of urban life in the twenty-first century. In his innovative and nuanced reading, Scott Bukatman details the making of Blade Runner and its steadily improving fortunes following its release in 1982.

These twenty superbly crafted linked stories navigate the difficult realm of friendship, charting its beginnings and ends, its intimacies and betrayals, its joys and humiliations. A mother learns something of the nature of love from watching her young daughter as she falls in and out of favour...

After being jilted by her fiance, Dulcie Mainwaring despairs of ever finding true love. For a distraction, she goes to a publishing conference, where she meets Viola Dace, a dramatic woman who refuses to live without romance, as well as Aylwin Forbes, an editor whom Viola adores. The fact that Aylwin is married doesn't stop Viola. When her amorous pursuit prompts Aylwin's wife to leave him, the academic heartthrob is wide open to Viola's romantic attentions. That is, until Dulcie's 18-year-old niece moves in with Viola, and the young girl soon catches Aylwin's roving eye.

A classic thriller from the bestselling master of action and suspense. The atomic submarine Dolphin has impossible orders: to sail beneath the ice floes of the Arctic Ocean, and somehow locate and rescue the men of weather-station Zebra, gutted by fire and drifting with the ice-pack somewhere...

The Empire Strikes Back (1980), the second film in the original Star Wars trilogy, is often cited as the ‘best’ and most popular Star Wars movie. In her compelling study, Rebecca Harrison draws on previously unpublished archival research to reveal a variety of original and often surprising perspectives on the film, from the cast and crew who worked on its production through to the audiences who watched it in cinemas.