Showing results by author "Charles Dickens"" in All Categories

Deeply distressed at thought of his singularly money-minded family circling around his inevitable death bed, when Old Martin Chuzzlewit comes across a young and kindly orphan girl, he immediately decides to take her into his employment. Offering her a comfortable living in exchange for her care and protection, Martin rests easy in the knowledge that her comfort will last only as long as he does; upon his death, Mary the orphan will find herself on the cold and dirty streets from whence she came.

A lone narrator meets a railway worker who is confined to a cold, gloomy station in a deep cutting near a tunnel entrance. This worker is a signalman, and it is his responsibility to give the green light for trains to pass through the area. These are slow, monotonous days. The signalman’s life is not marked by much, until the nightmares begin. Three times in a row, a ghost mysteriously appears before the signalman – and with each apparition, a tragic accident unfolds on the rail tracks. Although our narrator doubts the man at first, events soon make him a believer too.

Join David as he encounters his eccentric Aunt Betsey, faithful Peggotty and the villainous Uriah Heep, and as he falls in love with Little Em'ly, Dora and Agnes. And then there is old school friend James Steerforth: dashing, daring and seductive. This dramatisation explores the complexities and intimacies of that relationship beyond anything possible in Dickens' day, in an adaptation giving fresh life and vividness to this beloved tale.

'If I had my way, every idiot who goes around with Merry Christmas on his lips, would be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. Merry Christmas? Bah humbug!' Charles Dickens’ ghostly tale of sour and stingy miser Ebenezer Scrooge has captivated readers, listeners and audiences for over 150 years. This Christmas, Audible Studios brings this story to life in an audio drama featuring an all-star cast.

A selection of 17 classic stories of horror and the supernatural by some of the greatest writers in the genre. This compilation includes a mix of well-known classics by authors such as Charles Dickens and M. R. James, alongside several unjustly overlooked gems by less familiar names who were hugely popular and prolific in their day.

A complex plot of love and inheritance is set against the English legal system of the mid-19th century. As the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce drags on, it becomes an obsession to everyone involved. And the issue on an inheritance ultimately becomes a question of murder.

Audible presents an original dramatisation of Charles Dickens' Dombey and Son, first published as Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation. A literary masterpiece in which Dickens' gift for vivid characterisation is at its best, this is the story of a powerful man whose inability to appreciate those around him leads to his lonely demise and, later, his possible redemption.

Dombey and Son is vintage Dickens and explores the classic themes of betrayal, cruelty and deceit. Dombey's dysfunctional relationships are painted against a backdrop of social unrest in industrialized London, which is populated by a host of fascinating and memorable secondary characters. The complete and unabridged novel is brought spectacularly to life by veteran reader David Timson.

Captivating radio dramatisations of seven of Charles Dickens' most famous novels. Charles Dickens is one of the most renowned authors of all time, and this first digital volume of the dramatised canon of his work includes seven of his most popular novels. This collection includes the episodic...

One of Dickens' early works, Nicholas Nickleby combines comedy and tragedy in a tale of triumph over adversity that is interspersed with Dickens' moving condemnation of society's mistreatment of children and the cruelty of the educational system. Young Nickleby struggles to seek his fortune in Victorian England, yet succeeds despite social injustice, in a story that mirrors Dickens' own rise from poverty to great success.

Orphaned at birth, Oliver Twist is born into the grimmest of 19th century English workhouses with a life of grinding poverty ahead of him. But the boy is a fighter and after being evicted from the workhouse for asking for 'more' and surviving a stint as an undertaker’s assistant, he walks many miles to London and finds a whole new life with a gang of young pickpockets led by the Artful Dodger and their guardian Fagin.

Stephen Greif and Gareth Armstrong read these classic ghost stories from two masters of the genre. These four suspenseful tales of the supernatural, from M. R. James and Charles Dickens, will keep you on the edge of your seat and leave you with a lingering sense of foreboding. In "The Tractate Middoth", librarian David Garrett has a terrifying encounter while searching for an obscure book, while in "Mr Testator's Visitation", a poor man 'borrows' some furniture from another man's cellar, never expecting the owner to return and claim it. Then, late one night, there is a knock upon his door....

The days are getting colder, the nights are getting longer, and as Christmas approaches the time is high for some ghostly tales. As an exclusive gift for Audible members, settle down, snuggle up and listen to four chilling ghost stories, read by Simon Callow. Four great stories, one master storyteller - what could be simpler than that?

This Audible Exclusive production revisits Charles Dickens’ tragi-comic novel Little Dorrit. Written during the Crimean War, it a story of fortunes won and lost and a masterly portrayal of the failings of Victorian Society, with the ever-present spectre of law enforcement and imprisonment looming over a fearful population. Divided into two parts, Book One: Poverty and Book Two: Riches, Little Dorrit satirises the debtors prisons and the detrimental effect of enforcing a British class system.

When 19-year old Nicholas Nickleby is left destitute after his father's death, he appeals to his wealthy uncle to help him find work and to protect his mother and sister. But Ralph Nickleby offers little help and proves to be both hard-hearted and unscrupulous, leaving Nicholas to make his own way in the world.

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (commonly known as The Pickwick Papers) is the first novel by Charles Dickens. The book became the first real publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller joke books and other merchandise.

One of the most revered works in English literature, Great Expectations traces the coming of age of a young orphan, Pip, from a boy of shallow aspirations into a man of maturity. From the chilling opening confrontation with an escaped convict to the grand but eerily disheveled estate of bitter old Miss Havisham, all is not what it seems in Dickens’ dark tale of false illusions and thwarted desire.

Great Expectations follows Pip's life from a plucky but poor and put-upon child in the Kent marshes, to a young man with "great expectations" in London and the choices he must make as a result of his winding journey. On the way, we meet some of Dickens' most memorable and unique characters - the mysterious and brutal Magwtich; eternally heartbroken Miss Havisham; and her cold-hearted child Estella.

London. A city drowning in fog. Amid that fog, a man with no name dies above a strange junkshop. Threads of mist and intrigue weave around a court case with no resolution, linking great country houses with the lowest slum in the city, mingling the high-born with a boy who sweeps the filthy streets, enshrouding devious plots and sudden murder, bringing together two extraordinary women – Lady Dedlock and Esther Summerson - who seem to have nothing whatsoever in common but who will find themselves inextricably linked.

The youngest child of debtor William Dorrit, Amy is born in Marshalsea prison. She and her father are befriended by Arthur Clennam, whose mother employs 'little Dorrit' as a seamstress. The fortunes of the Dorrits undergo an extreme change when Williams inherits a fortune, and the family move to...