Short Classics

Les deux des plus grands textes de la littérature française réunis dans cette compilation pour le plus grand plaisir des admirateurs de Maupassant.

Elizabeth Gaskell's chilling Gothic Tales blends the real and the supernatural to eerie, compelling effect. 'Disappearances', inspired by local legends of mysterious vanishings, mixes gossip and fact; Lois the Witch, a novella based on an account of the Salem witch hunts, shows how sexual desire and jealousy lead to hysteria; while in 'The Old Nurse's Story' a mysterious child roams the freezing Northumberland moors.

Mathilde Loisel, the lowly born wife of a clerk, has always felt she was meant for greater things. She imagines beautiful gowns, glittering parties, a home of opulence, and a life of comfort. Her only wish is to be flattered and admired, and she is miserable that she will never know that life. But out of the blue, her husband comes home with an invitation to a ball. She buys a new dress but mourns her lack of jewels. But wait!

What would you trade for the secret to unimaginable fortune? In Alexander Pushkin's The Queen of Spades, an ambitious young officer becomes entangled in a web of greed, mystery, and the supernatural, all centered around the fateful queen of spades. Set in the glittering salons and shadowy streets of St. Petersburg, this story unravels with a mix of elegance and unease. Pushkin's sharp storytelling brings to life characters who are as unpredictable as the hands they're dealt—where ambition collides with madness, and destiny plays its cruelest game.

Bukowski's mad immortal origins, surfaced from the literary underground, have addicted legions of audiences who've recognized Bukowski as one of America's greatest realist writers and poets. Audible Studios narrator and OBIE winner Will Patton ( Remember the Titans, The Good Wife, Armageddon) gives a tour de force performance of Bukowski's greatest work in his prime.

This collection from grand master Robert A. Heinlein includes five short stories sure to please science fiction fans everywhere. The title story tells the tale of a young man who meets a time-traveling bartender whose origins - and relation to the young man - are more complex and stranger than the Ouroboros ring on the barkeep's finger.

The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories is a bizarre and colorful collection containing the finest short stories by the iconic Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. From the witty and Kafkaesque "The Nose", where a civil servant wakes up one day to find his nose missing, to the moving and evocative "The Overcoat", about a reclusive man whose only ambition is to replace his old, threadbare coat, Gogol gives us a unique take on the absurd.

This dark story, set in medieval Austria, hinges on unearthly and hidden mental powers. It also gives an insight to the author's psyche during his final days.

The other stories in this edition include "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg", "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", "The Story of the Bad Little Boy", "The Diary of Adam and Eve", "Edward Mills and George Benton", "The Joke That Made Ed's Fortune", and "A Fable".

Almustafa, the chosen and beloved, must leave the port of Orphalese upon the ship he has waited upon for 12 years. As he descends to the waterfront, the people of Orphalese gather to question him and hear his wisdom on important topics of their daily lives. Kahlil Gibran's masterpiece is a series of enlightening, philosophical answers to those questions. The inspirational and spiritual words of The Prophet, written in an almost Biblical, poetic style, reveal deep insights into each of the subjects in question.

A riveting collection of stories of ships, sailors, adventures on the high seas and maritime mysteries. The Tale by Joseph Conrad. The Saloon Passenger by E. W. Hornung. The Terrible Story of the "Mary Russell" by J. G. Lockhart. Marooned by J. G. Lockhart. A Rash Experiment by W. W. Jacobs. The Mystery of the Mary Celeste by J. G. Lockhart. Smoked Skipper by W. W. Jacobs. The Flying Dutchman by J. G. Lockhart. The Cabin Passenger by W. W. Jacobs. The Ship that saw a Ghost by Frank Norris.

Exciting retellings of "Goldilocks & the Three Bears," "Rumpelstiltskin," and more, from master storyteller Jim Weiss. These six stories include beloved classics like "Rumplestiltskin" along with less-familiar tales like "The Bremen Town Musicians" that are sure to become new favorites. There's also a bonus song!

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer, now best remembered for his science fiction novels and often credited as being the father of science fiction. 'The Country of the Blind' is the strange story of a mountain guide who accidently falls off a cliff ledge in the Andes. He survives the fall unhurt, and finds himself in a remote valley where a tribe lives completely cut off from the rest of the world.

The French Classics Collection brings together 18 of the greatest works of fiction ever written in French - here collected into one audiobook and all translated into English. Featuring grand epics of love, loss, and survival, as in Les Miserables, to tales of adventure in Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, and romances such as Madame Bovary, alongside many more grand stories from 17th, 18th, and 19th century France, this collection will whisk you away into other worlds with some of the greatest characters in literature within some of the greatest novels ever written.

En El Príncipe Feliz, Oscar Wilde narra, de manera sumamente conmovedora, el primer y último intento de un príncipe por ayudar a su pueblo; para ello contará con la ayuda de una intrépida golondrina, y juntos, lo entregarán todo en nombre del amor. El sufrimiento de los hombres y de las mujeres es aún más sorprendente, no hay misterio tan grande como la miseria... Vuela sobre mi ciudad, pequeña golondrina, y dime qué ves allí.

The first thing every listener will want to know is whether Anne Shirley appears in these stories of Avonlea and Spencervale. She certainly does. As a matter of fact, page one starts off in this manner: "Anne Shirley was curled up on the window seat of Theodora Dix's sitting room one Saturday evening, looking dreamily afar at some fair starland beyond the hills of sunset. Anne was visiting for a fortnight of her vacation."

Volume two in this series consists of one novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and two collections of short stories, which include "Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" and "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (a total of 23 stories). These creations by Doyle represent the finest work of his Holmes series, and certainly the most famous.

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol - A Ghost Story of Christmas in Five Staves when he was 31. Now with numerous adaptations for film, television, radio, stage - and indeed in audio - it has become an essential part of Christmas for many. Raconteurs Audio has created this collection to include Dickens’ two Christmas novellas, The Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth, as well as some of his lesser known short stories with a Christmas theme.

Winesburg, Ohio is a short story cycle by Sherwood Anderson. The plot revolves around the life of George Willard, from his childhood to him leaving the town as an adult. The work comprises 22 stories, with the first, "The Book of the Grotesque", serving as introduction. The book is considered a pioneering work of modernist literature due to the prominence giving to the psychological insight of the characters and the simple prose style.

Die Entdeckung eines erstaunlichen Erzählers. Dieses Hörbuch versammelt haarsträubende Reise-, aberwitzige Lügen- und tragikomische Liebesgeschichten, die Kästner zwischen den frühen Zwanzigerjahren und der Nachkriegszeit schrieb. Viele davon erschienen nur in Tageszeitungen. Es zeigt sich, dass die Form der Erzählung für Erich Kästner ein Experimentierfeld war, das er höchst unterhaltsam zu durchmessen wusste.

James Joyce's disillusion with the publication of Dubliners in 1914 was the result of ten years battling with publishers, resisting their demands to remove swear words, real place names and much else, including two entire stories. Although only 24 when he signed his first publishing contract for the book, Joyce already knew its worth. Joyce's aim was to tell the truth — to create a work of art that would reflect life in Ireland at the turn of the last century.