Classic Audiobook Collection

The Opal Serpent by Fergus Hume audiobook. Genre: mystery In Edwardian London, young Paul Beecot breaks away from a stifling life in the country to chase a writing career and a chance at independence. His new start takes an ominous turn when he crosses paths with the guarded pawnbroker Aaron Norman and Norman's captivating daughter, Sylvia, whose loyalty to her father is matched only by her fear of a peculiar piece of jewelry: an opal brooch shaped like a coiled serpent. When the old man is found murdered in a scene as theatrical as it is brutal, the serpent brooch becomes the story's chilling signature and its most valuable clue. Rumors of superstition swirl, but the real menace lies in greed, hidden relationships, and the sudden appearance of competing claims over Norman's fortune and Sylvia's very identity. As Detective Hurd and other investigators push through contradictory testimony and carefully staged alibis, Paul finds himself pulled deeper into the case, torn between ambition, conscience, and his growing attachment to Sylvia. Blending street-level London atmosphere with twists of inheritance, disguise, and motive, The Opal Serpent is a classic puzzle mystery where every secret has a price. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:24:12) Chapter 02 (00:50:10) Chapter 03 (01:13:52) Chapter 04 (01:36:44) Chapter 05 (01:59:51) Chapter 06 (02:23:13) Chapter 07 (02:43:55) Chapter 08 (03:05:56) Chapter 09 (03:27:40) Chapter 10 (03:48:38) Chapter 11 (04:09:24) Chapter 12 (04:30:41) Chapter 13 (04:55:34) Chapter 14 (05:16:29) Chapter 15 (05:39:23) Chapter 16 (05:59:31) Chapter 17 (06:21:06) Chapter 18 (06:41:21) Chapter 19 (06:57:57) Chapter 20 (07:21:39) Chapter 21 (07:45:00) Chapter 22 (08:07:30) Chapter 23 (08:29:22) Chapter 24 (08:53:53) Chapter 25 (09:24:47) Chapter 26 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Mikado Jewel by Fergus Hume audiobook. Genre: mystery In fog-bound Edwardian London, Patricia Carrol, an out-of-work Irish governess, is scraping by at a shabby Bayswater boarding house optimistically nicknamed The Home of Art. When the lodgers troop off to celebrate a play premiere, Patricia stays behind to tend Mrs. Pentreddle, the landlady's grim, secretive sister. The old woman offers Patricia five pounds for a simple errand: meet a stranger by the Serpentine and collect a small box. But the favor turns into a nightmare when Patricia returns to find Mrs. Pentreddle brutally murdered and the quiet house suddenly crawling with suspicion. With the police asking hard questions and the other boarders whispering, Patricia must piece together what really happened during that empty, silent night. The mysterious box points to a much larger story: a legendary jewel linked to hidden motives, dangerous passions, and a Japanese connection that draws in outsiders far beyond Crook Street. Moving from theatrical boarding-house gossip to family secrets and diplomatic intrigue, Fergus Hume spins a classic puzzle where innocence is fragile, alibis are slippery, and the truth has a long shadow. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:27:40) Chapter 02 (00:46:20) Chapter 03 (01:09:48) Chapter 04 (01:32:33) Chapter 05 (01:54:15) Chapter 06 (02:16:22) Chapter 07 (02:39:39) Chapter 08 (03:04:52) Chapter 09 (03:27:22) Chapter 10 (03:49:01) Chapter 11 (04:12:38) Chapter 12 (04:34:58) Chapter 13 (04:56:44) Chapter 14 (05:18:46) Chapter 15 (05:43:43) Chapter 16 (06:09:39) Chapter 17 (06:33:53) Chapter 18 (07:01:11) Chapter 19 (07:33:13) Chapter 20 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Lady From Nowhere by Fergus Hume audiobook. Genre: mystery On a warm July night in 1896, the quiet London suburb of Grangebury is jolted awake by a single cry: murder. Maria Presk, a hard pressed landlady in Paradise Row, has found her newest lodger, the reclusive Miss Ligram, strangled inside a lavish chamber drenched in yellow silk and candlelight. Called in to assist the plodding local inspector, Scotland Yard detective Absolom Gebb arrives to face a puzzle that is equal parts crime scene and theatrical tableau: an eerie 'death-card' left as if to taunt the law, a locked house full of frightened witnesses, and a victim who seems to have stepped into town without history, friends, or even a true name. As newspapers swarm and rumors multiply, Gebb follows the few tangible clues outward from the Yellow Room into a trail of vanished addresses, cautious solicitors, disputed inheritances, and whispers from an old country estate where money and respectability hide dangerous secrets. To solve the killing, he must first discover who Miss Ligram really was, and why someone wanted the lady from nowhere erased before her past could be found. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:14:46) Chapter 02 (00:31:43) Chapter 03 (00:46:20) Chapter 04 (01:00:45) Chapter 05 (01:13:31) Chapter 06 (01:28:09) Chapter 07 (01:41:38) Chapter 08 (01:55:42) Chapter 09 (02:09:13) Chapter 10 (02:22:00) Chapter 11 (02:37:02) Chapter 12 (02:51:45) Chapter 13 (03:05:43) Chapter 14 (03:18:43) Chapter 15 (03:33:13) Chapter 16 (03:46:50) Chapter 17 (04:00:15) Chapter 18 (04:14:39) Chapter 19 (04:28:41) Chapter 20 (04:42:15) Chapter 21 (04:56:02) Chapter 22 (05:08:09) Chapter 23 (05:23:07) Chapter 24 (05:37:32) Chapter 25 (05:55:01) Chapter 26 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Girl From Malta by Fergus Hume audiobook. Genre: mystery One evening as the P. and O.'s vessel 'Neptune' steams away from Australia to Britain, Ronald Monteith, a young, wealthy Australian is taken into the confidence of a fellow-passenger Lionel Ventin who relates the story of his rather tragic life. When Ventin is found stabbed to death in his cabin the next morning Monteith vows to find the murderer, thinking it must surely be the vengeful wife of whom he spoke who is responsible. When arriving in London he immediately seeks the help of a barrister and a detective. However, as he delves deeper into the mystery, he is mortified to find the evidence begins to point to the girl he has fallen in love with - the girl from Malta.. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:36:23) Chapter 02 (01:06:41) Chapter 03 (01:38:50) Chapter 04 (02:03:44) Chapter 05 (02:30:03) Chapter 06 (02:59:24) Chapter 07 (03:27:44) Chapter 08 (03:52:07) Chapter 09 (04:13:41) Chapter 10 (04:36:53) Chapter 11 (05:02:35) Chapter 12 (05:26:37) Chapter 13 (05:44:52) Chapter 14 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Crimson Cryptogram by Fergus Hume audiobook. Genre: mystery In late-Victorian England, young Dr. Robert Ellis is running out of money, patience, and hope. Night after night, he and his journalist friend, Harry Cass, talk in their shabby rooms about a future that never seems to arrive - until a frantic neighbor, the young and shaken Mrs. Moxton, bursts in with a nightmare announcement: her husband has been found dead, murdered in the garden. Ellis and Cass rush to the scene and discover a chilling detail the police cannot ignore - a strange set of marks, scrawled in blood on the victim's sleeve, like a message meant to survive its writer. With no clear suspect and motives buried beneath respectable appearances, the pair are pulled into an investigation that tests Ellis's nerve and Cass's instincts for hidden stories. As they follow a trail of coded clues, uneasy friendships, and carefully guarded secrets, the crimson cryptogram becomes both a puzzle and a warning, hinting at a larger design behind a single violent act. Fergus Hume blends brisk detective work with social tension and mounting suspense, inviting you to solve the code before it is too late. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:14:24) Chapter 02 (00:26:51) Chapter 03 (00:41:13) Chapter 04 (00:57:25) Chapter 05 (01:12:47) Chapter 06 (01:28:29) Chapter 07 (01:42:23) Chapter 08 (01:57:59) Chapter 09 (02:13:01) Chapter 10 (02:26:56) Chapter 11 (02:39:52) Chapter 12 (02:53:08) Chapter 13 (03:07:05) Chapter 14 (03:21:29) Chapter 15 (03:34:39) Chapter 16 (03:49:22) Chapter 17 (04:03:35) Chapter 18 (04:18:16) Chapter 19 (04:33:48) Chapter 20 (04:46:03) Chapter 21 (04:59:48) Chapter 22 (05:13:46) Chapter 23 (05:26:56) Chapter 24 (05:39:44) Chapter 25 (05:52:55) Chapter 26 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Clock Struck One by Fergus Hume audiobook. Genre: mystery In the sun-baked lanes outside Canterbury, Dora Carew rides her bicycle with the confidence of a modern young woman, but the home she returns to - the lonely Red House - is steeped in old fears. Her guardian, Julian Edermont, has lived in strict seclusion for years, yet a single church service rattles him to the core: at the prayer for deliverance from murder and sudden death, he nearly collapses, and the name of a newly arrived society guest, Lady Burville, begins to haunt his mutterings. Dora turns to her fiance, Dr. Allen Scott, for help, only to find his own behavior growing strained and secretive as the household tensions sharpen. Then, after a night of uneasy silence and the hall clock chiming one, Edermont is found violently slain in his study. With the village hungry for scandal and suspicion shifting from friend to stranger, Dora is forced to sift gossip, grudges, and half-buried history for the truth. Fergus Hume blends country-house unease, Victorian intrigue, and a determined heroine into a whodunit where the past refuses to stay locked behind closed gates. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:26:26) Chapter 02 (00:51:57) Chapter 03 (01:18:06) Chapter 04 (01:45:13) Chapter 05 (02:14:50) Chapter 06 (02:43:37) Chapter 07 (03:14:03) Chapter 08 (03:41:25) Chapter 09 (04:09:33) Chapter 10 (04:39:09) Chapter 11 (05:08:07) Chapter 12 (05:37:13) Chapter 13 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Bishop’s Secret by Fergus Hume audiobook. Genre: mystery Bishop Pendle is the Church of England bishop in a small fictitious English cathedral town. Several years into his work, he receives a visit from a disreputable-looking visitor. The bishop is much upset. What transpired between them that has so upset the good churchman? And then there is the murder. Fergus Hume was one of the most prolific and most popular of 19th century novelists. 'Mr. Hume won a reputation second to none for plot of the stirring, ingenious, misleading, and finally surprising kind, and for working out his plot in vigorous and picturesque English. In 'The Bishop's Secret,' while there is no falling off in plot and style, there is a welcome and marvelous broadening out as to the cast of characters, representing an unusually wide range of typical men and women. These are not laboriously described by the author, but are made to reveal themselves in action and speech in a way that has, for the reader, all the charm of personal intercourse with living people....' For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:02:55) Chapter 01 (00:22:30) Chapter 02 (00:43:39) Chapter 03 (01:04:06) Chapter 04 (01:24:42) Chapter 05 (01:42:24) Chapter 06 (01:58:54) Chapter 07 (02:18:31) Chapter 08 (02:36:21) Chapter 09 (02:54:21) Chapter 10 (03:12:23) Chapter 11 (03:30:56) Chapter 12 (03:47:31) Chapter 13 (04:06:40) Chapter 14 (04:24:22) Chapter 15 (04:43:55) Chapter 16 (05:02:05) Chapter 17 (05:22:21) Chapter 18 (05:39:55) Chapter 19 (05:58:19) Chapter 20 (06:18:12) Chapter 21 (06:40:02) Chapter 22 (06:57:33) Chapter 23 (07:19:12) Chapter 24 (07:37:56) Chapter 25 (07:56:44) Chapter 26 (08:16:03) Chapter 27 (08:34:25) Chapter 28 (08:53:54) Chapter 29 (09:12:26) Chapter 30 (09:29:54) Chapter 31 (09:48:44) Chapter 32 (10:06:53) Chapter 33 (10:29:13) Chapter 34 (10:50:09) Chapter 35 (11:13:13) Chapter 36 (11:33:25) Chapter 37 (11:55:05) Chapter 38 (12:18:14) Chapter 39 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Red Money by Fergus Hume audiobook. Genre: mystery At Lord Garvington's country estate, a languid shooting-season house party goes looking for novelty in Abbot's Wood: a traveling Romany camp offering fortunes, music, and a brush with the forbidden. The excursion would be harmless gossip, if the neighborhood were not already nervous about a string of burglaries - and if Garvington were not so eager to boast that any midnight intruder will be met with a bullet. When gunfire shatters the quiet and a wounded stranger is seen fleeing across the moonlit grounds, the Manor's polished social games turn instantly lethal. As the authorities close in, suspicion spreads through the guests and the servants alike, and the old tensions beneath the dinner-table chatter boil over: Lady Agnes Pine's uneasy marriage to a powerful millionaire, the return of her impoverished cousin Noel Lambert, and the sharp-eyed interference of Clara Greeby, an heiress with a talent for asking the questions polite society avoids. What begins as a country-house mystery leads into blackmail, hidden identities, and an inheritance whose origin is whispered about as 'red money' - wealth bought at too high a price. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:27:19) Chapter 02 (00:54:36) Chapter 03 (01:22:42) Chapter 04 (01:48:43) Chapter 05 (02:17:57) Chapter 06 (02:48:41) Chapter 07 (03:14:33) Chapter 08 (03:40:57) Chapter 09 (04:06:35) Chapter 10 (04:34:20) Chapter 11 (05:03:40) Chapter 12 (05:33:02) Chapter 13 (05:59:40) Chapter 14 (06:26:55) Chapter 15 (06:53:35) Chapter 16 (07:20:56) Chapter 17 (07:50:23) Chapter 18 (08:17:08) Chapter 19 (08:46:38) Chapter 20 (09:22:07) Chapter 21 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mystery of a Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume audiobook. Genre: mystery “The following report appeared in the Argus newspaper of Saturday, the 28th July, 18-- “Truth is said to be stranger than fiction, and certainly the extraordinary murder which took place in Melbourne on Thursday night, or rather Friday morning, goes a long way towards verifying this saying. A crime has been committed by an unknown assassin, within a short distance of the principal streets of this great city, and is surrounded by an impenetrable mystery. … “On the twenty-seventh day of July, at the hour of twenty minutes to two o'clock in the morning, a hansom cab drove up to the police station in Grey Street, St. Kilda, and the driver made the startling statement that his cab contained the body of a man who he had reason to believe had been murdered….” (Excerpt from the first chapter.) For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:06:28) Chapter 01 (00:16:02) Chapter 02 (00:26:05) Chapter 03 (00:27:17) Chapter 04 (00:35:13) Chapter 05 (00:49:05) Chapter 06 (01:03:55) Chapter 07 (01:19:59) Chapter 08 (01:37:35) Chapter 09 (01:58:22) Chapter 10 (02:12:52) Chapter 11 (02:28:30) Chapter 12 (02:44:39) Chapter 13 (03:01:44) Chapter 14 (03:14:38) Chapter 15 (03:30:59) Chapter 16 (03:41:41) Chapter 17 (03:59:20) Chapter 18 (04:11:23) Chapter 19 (04:28:35) Chapter 20 (04:36:05) Chapter 21 (04:50:43) Chapter 22 (05:00:40) Chapter 23 (05:14:10) Chapter 24 (05:29:12) Chapter 25 (05:42:58) Chapter 26 (05:51:39) Chapter 27 (06:05:33) Chapter 28 (06:21:16) Chapter 29 (06:33:07) Chapter 30 (06:48:15) Chapter 31 (06:59:18) Chapter 32 (07:08:08) Chapter 33 (07:23:43) Chapter 34 (07:35:41) Chapter 35 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hagar of the Pawn-Shop by Fergus Hume audiobook. Genre: mystery Hagar Stanley, a beautiful young Gypsy, is driven by sexual harassment to leave her tribe and seek refuge with her uncle Jacob, a miserly London pawnbroker. He dies after teaching Hagar the business, and she takes over running the popshop till the legitimate heir can be traced. In the odd assortment of objects that pass across her counter, Hagar uncovers one mystery after another. Some items are linked to actual crimes, others to iniquitous acts of human deceit and betrayal. Whether investigating independently or alongside the police, Hagar combines her native shrewdness with woman's intuition to help untangle the webs of wickedness she encounters, that justice might prevail in the end. Though the individual mysteries in Hagar of the Pawn-shop may be read separately, they are so arranged by Fergus Hume as to form a linked set, with characters from earlier stories popping up again later on, one as Hagar's love interest and another as her nemesis. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:50:58) Chapter 2 (01:35:55) Chapter 3 (02:22:55) Chapter 4 (03:00:44) Chapter 5 (03:42:01) Chapter 6 (04:22:41) Chapter 7 (05:10:05) Chapter 8 (05:47:32) Chapter 9 (06:28:28) Chapter 10 (07:05:15) Chapter 11 (07:42:40) Chapter 12 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Offshore Pirate by F. Scott Fitzgerald audiobook. Genre: romance Set in the glittering early 20th century, The Offshore Pirate follows Ardita Farnam, a sharp-tongued, wealthy young woman who is tired of being treated like an ornament and determined to steer her own life. Escaping watchful chaperones aboard her uncle's yacht, Ardita insists on adventure - and finds it in the most unexpected way when a sleek motorboat cuts across the waves and a self-styled pirate stages a daring takeover. The intruder, Toby Moreland, is charming, clever, and infuriatingly confident, and he claims to be an outlaw with a crew and a code of his own. As the yacht is forced to play along, Ardita is drawn into a fast-moving game of bluff, negotiation, and flirtation, where the line between performance and sincerity keeps shifting. Fitzgerald mixes sparkling dialogue with sunlit suspense, using the high seas as a stage for questions of freedom, identity, and what it means to choose your own story. Light on its feet and rich in wit, this tale turns a fantasy of danger into a test of courage and desire. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:11:18) Chapter 02 (00:20:55) Chapter 03 (00:34:54) Chapter 04 (00:47:57) Chapter 05 (00:56:41) Chapter 06 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Ice Palace by F. Scott Fitzgerald audiobook. Genre: drama In The Ice Palace, F. Scott Fitzgerald introduces Sally Carrol Happer, a spirited young woman from a small Southern town who feels both cherished and confined by the languid rhythms of Georgia life. When she becomes engaged to Harry Bellamy, a promising man from the North, Sally Carrol sees a chance to step into a larger world - and to test whether her restlessness is real or just a romantic daydream. Traveling to Harry's Midwestern hometown in the heart of winter, she encounters a landscape of snow, ice, and brisk social codes that seems to demand a different version of herself. As parties and polite introductions give way to quieter moments of doubt, Sally Carrol must weigh the security of commitment against the pull of home, climate, and culture. Fitzgerald crafts a tense, intimate portrait of a woman caught between regions and expectations, where love is complicated by identity, pride, and the fear of losing one's sense of belonging. The story's central conflict turns on what it truly means to grow up, to choose, and to live with the consequences of choosing. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:11:57) Chapter 02 (00:20:26) Chapter 03 (00:37:44) Chapter 04 (00:46:07) Chapter 05 (01:00:37) Chapter 06 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald audiobook. Genre: fantasy In a quietly uncanny Baltimore, a child is born under extraordinary circumstances: Benjamin Button arrives with the appearance and manner of an old man, setting his family on a collision course with confusion, embarrassment, and reluctant wonder. As the years pass, Benjamin moves through school, work, love, and social life in the most unexpected direction, forcing everyone around him - and especially Benjamin himself - to confront what it means to belong in a world governed by ordinary time. His father, Roger Button, struggles to protect the family name while navigating a son who upends every expectation. Benjamin's own desires are simple enough: to be taken seriously, to find companionship, and to claim a place where his body and his age make sense together. But society is not built for someone whose life runs against the clock. With Fitzgerald's sharp wit and bittersweet insight, the story uses its fantastical premise to explore identity, ambition, romance, and the fragile rules by which people measure a life. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:40:41) Chapter 02 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald audiobook. Genre: drama Set in the glittering, uneasy years just before and after World War I, The Beautiful and Damned follows Anthony Patch, a charming Harvard graduate who believes his real life will begin once he inherits his wealthy grandfather's fortune. In New York City he meets Gloria Gilbert, a magnetic young woman whose beauty and appetite for pleasure match his own. They marry and plunge into a social world of parties, cocktails, and fashionable friends, convinced that talent and good looks will carry them through. But as the inheritance remains out of reach, their days of effortless indulgence collide with the realities of work, money, and responsibility. Anthony's drifting ambition turns combative, Gloria's dreams of admiration meet the limits of time and circumstance, and the couple's love becomes entangled with jealousy, pride, and dependence. With sharp wit and a clear-eyed view of American privilege, Fitzgerald traces how desire, idleness, and expectation can erode character - and how two people can both adore and damage each other while chasing a life that never quite arrives. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:47:10) Chapter 2 (01:21:19) Chapter 3 (01:58:41) Chapter 4 (02:49:59) Chapter 5 (03:35:13) Chapter 6 (04:12:11) Chapter 7 (04:45:16) Chapter 8 (05:20:05) Chapter 9 (06:08:39) Chapter 10 (06:41:50) Chapter 11 (07:25:59) Chapter 12 (08:06:51) Chapter 13 (08:53:20) Chapter 14 (09:38:41) Chapter 15 (10:18:11) Chapter 16 (11:01:18) Chapter 17 (11:43:38) Chapter 18 (12:14:26) Chapter 19 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald audiobook. Genre: drama In Tales of the Jazz Age, F. Scott Fitzgerald gathers a vivid set of stories that capture the glitter and unease of post-World War I America, when prosperity, parties, and reinvention seemed to promise a new kind of freedom. Moving from Manhattan drawing rooms to small town streets and into dreamlike, even fable-like landscapes, Fitzgerald follows ambitious young men and women chasing status, romance, and a sense of self in a world that rewards charm but punishes sincerity. Across these sharply observed tales, characters gamble on love, money, and reputation, only to find that desire can be both a ladder and a trap. With his signature blend of wit and melancholy, Fitzgerald explores the costs of social climbing, the seductions of wealth, the fragility of youth, and the quiet heartbreak behind bright lights. By turns satirical, tender, and haunting, this collection offers a portrait of an era at its most exhilarating and most precarious, and asks what remains when the music slows and the illusions start to fade. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:08:52) Chapter 01 (00:48:46) Chapter 02 (01:43:45) Chapter 03 (02:37:44) Chapter 04 (03:28:35) Chapter 05 (03:49:14) Chapter 06 (04:40:42) Chapter 07 (05:16:18) Chapter 08 (06:11:18) Chapter 09 (06:26:03) Chapter 10 (07:33:42) Chapter 11 (08:19:58) Chapter 12 (08:35:17) Chapter 13 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Flappers and Philosophers by F. Scott Fitzgerald audiobook. Genre: drama Step into the bright, restless world of the early 1920s with Flappers and Philosophers, F. Scott Fitzgerald's sparkling first story collection. Across eight tales of youth, money, and sudden desire, Fitzgerald follows dreamers and social climbers as they chase romance, status, and the newest thrills of the Jazz Age. In the title story, a young man tries to map love with logic only to discover that emotions refuse to obey tidy rules. In other stories, ambitious outsiders test their luck in drawing rooms and on city streets, while young women with a new sense of freedom weigh what they want against what society expects. From glittering parties to quiet moments of self-reckoning, each narrative captures the push and pull between idealism and reality, between the performance of sophistication and the private cost of wanting more. Witty, bittersweet, and sharply observed, these stories reveal how quickly fortunes can shift and how easily a single choice can define a life, offering a vivid portrait of an era intoxicated with possibility - and shadowed by consequence. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (01:11:47) Chapter 02 (02:12:15) Chapter 03 (03:05:53) Chapter 04 (03:55:03) Chapter 05 (04:55:05) Chapter 06 (05:32:34) Chapter 07 (06:12:29) Chapter 08 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bernice Bobs Her Hair by F. Scott Fitzgerald audiobook. Genre: drama In this sharp, witty story of youth and status, Bernice, a shy girl from the East, arrives for a summer visit with her dazzling cousin Marjorie at a small-town country club in Minnesota. Surrounded by dances, tennis, porch gossip, and a social scene ruled by quick tongues and quicker judgments, Bernice feels invisible next to Marjorie's effortless charm. Marjorie offers to remake her - coaching her on conversation, confidence, and the careful performance that passes for popularity. The lessons work, but success comes with a price: attention turns into scrutiny, friendships become competitions, and Marjorie and Bernice slip from allies into rivals as the town decides who deserves to shine. When a dare about a drastic new look becomes a public test of nerve, Bernice is forced to choose between staying safe and taking control of her own image. Fitzgerald captures the thrill of belonging, the cruelty of fashionable crowds, and the uneasy question beneath every compliment: is the admired version of you actually you at all? For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:32:18) Chapter 02 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Man Overboard! by F. Marion Crawford audiobook. Genre: horror A storm howls across the sea as the schooner Helen B. Jackson fights to stay afloat, and in the chaos a cry rings out: man overboard. When the crew counts heads after the gale, one of the Benton twins is missing - Jim or Jack, so alike that even shipmates hesitate to swear which brother was swept away. The loss should be the end of it, another hard truth of life before the mast, yet strange details begin to accumulate: an extra place setting that appears to have been used, footsteps where no one is walking, a sense of company in the tight quarters of the ship. The narrator, a practical seaman with no taste for superstition, tries to explain away what he sees and hears, but the uncanny follows the surviving twin back to shore as well. With a young woman named Mamie waiting in his new life, the survivor should be able to begin again - if grief, guilt, and whatever came back from the storm will let him. Crawford blends nautical realism with a slow, chilling ghostly doubt about identity and the boundaries between the living and the dead. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:29:32) Chapter 2 (00:59:19) Chapter 3 (01:27:36) Chapter 4 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sentry of the Sky by Evelyn E. Smith audiobook. Genre: scifi Clarey is a low-ranking Sub-Archivist in a rigid future society where your job classification can define your entire life, and his private dream of becoming a musician feels more impossible every year. Then, during what he expects to be yet another disappointing visit to the Classification Center, Clarey is abruptly reassigned - not to the artistic post he imagined, but to something far more dangerous: an intelligence assignment off-world. Sent to the alien planet Damorlan, he must learn to survive in a place where social cues are unfamiliar, loyalties are hard to read, and a single mistake can expose him as an outsider. As Clarey is pulled deeper into interstellar intrigue, he faces a constant pressure to perform a role he never asked for while trying to hold onto the parts of himself the system has tried to file away. Witty, sharp, and tense, Sentry of the Sky blends espionage stakes with satirical observations about bureaucracy, ambition, and the uneasy gap between who we are and who we are permitted to be. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:35:35) Chapter 02 (01:08:13) Chapter 03 (01:36:17) Chapter 04 (02:08:04) Chapter 05 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Biography of a Grizzly by Ernest Thompson Seton audiobook. Genre: biography In The Biography of a Grizzly, Ernest Thompson Seton tells the life story of a wild bear with the attention and dignity usually reserved for human heroes. From his first uncertain steps in the mountain forests to his rise as a powerful, wary survivor, the grizzly (often known as Wahb) learns the hard rules of a world shaped by hunger, weather, territory, and relentless danger. Guided by instinct and hard-won experience, he navigates rival predators, shifting seasons, and the ever-tightening presence of people - traps, rifles, poisoned bait, and the steady pressure of settlement. Seton blends vivid natural observation with a dramatic narrative voice, inviting listeners to see the landscape through the bear's senses: scent on the wind, the language of tracks, the promise and peril of open meadows. As Wahb grows older and more formidable, his struggles become as much about memory and caution as about strength, raising questions about what civilization calls 'vermin' and what nature calls a life. This is a gripping, empathetic portrait of endurance at the edge of the human frontier. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:35:04) Chapter 02 (01:04:38) Chapter 03 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Jack-Knife Man by Ellis Parker Butler audiobook. Genre: family Ellis Parker Butler's The Jack-Knife Man is a warm, quietly comic story of unlikely family and hard-won belonging along the Mississippi River. Peter Lane is an aging drifter who lives alone on a battered houseboat, passing his days with a jack-knife in hand, whittling small wooden figures and keeping to himself. But on a stormy night, a desperate woman arrives at his door with her young son, Buddy - and by morning Peter finds himself with a child to feed, protect, and somehow claim as his own. As Peter and Buddy settle into life on the river, a ragged wanderer named Booge drifts into their orbit, and the three form a makeshift household held together by simple decency, improvised joy, and the little toys Peter carves. Their fragile peace is tested by suspicious townspeople and well-meaning authorities who believe Buddy would be better off anywhere else, forcing Peter to prove he can offer more than shelter - he can offer a future. Tender, humorous, and deeply humane, Butler's novel explores charity without sentimentality and the stubborn courage it takes to love when the world says you should let go. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:26:09) Chapter 02 (00:37:02) Chapter 03 (00:57:41) Chapter 04 (01:26:32) Chapter 05 (01:55:12) Chapter 06 (02:23:42) Chapter 07 (02:43:00) Chapter 08 (02:53:35) Chapter 09 (03:05:26) Chapter 10 (03:22:41) Chapter 11 (03:31:54) Chapter 12 (04:03:24) Chapter 13 (04:17:31) Chapter 14 (04:36:38) Chapter 15 (04:51:44) Chapter 16 (05:08:37) Chapter 17 (05:28:19) Chapter 18 (05:38:15) Chapter 19 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Confessions of a Daddy by Ellis Parker Butler audiobook. Genre: comedy The wry humor of Ellis Parker Butler, who gave us the classic Pigs Is Pigs, takes us into his own married life where Marthy and Hiram live quietly in their Colorado town. They don't have trouble with anyone of their neighbors. Why should they, as they don't have any kids that could cause the neighbors trouble? And oh, luckily they don't have kids because how could Hiram otherwise afford to give his wife, Marthy a new silk dress? Really lucky. The neighbors kids are cute and all but ugh, they are much better off without kids and their expenses and sicknesses and trouble. Except that one boy, well, he's cool, Hiram wouldn't mind having him around and teaching him how to fish. Or maybe the neighbors youngest daughter, shes so nice. All of this superiority changes when they expect a child of their own and then the poor little thing is born. Funny, poignant and oh, so true! For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:18:02) Chapter 02 (00:36:32) Chapter 03 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Master-Knot of Human Fate by Ellis Meredith audiobook. Genre: fantasy When a spring hike along a rugged Rocky Mountain trail turns into the unthinkable, two strangers are cut off from everything they ever knew. Adam, a capable, reflective man, and Robin, a sharp-witted woman with a fierce moral imagination, watch the world below them vanish in a sudden, overwhelming cataclysm. With no city lights to return to and no voices answering their calls, they take shelter in an isolated cabin and begin the hard work of staying alive: finding food, making tools, learning old skills the modern world made easy to forget. Yet survival is only the first test. In the silence after disaster, Adam and Robin are forced to confront the questions civilization usually drowns out: what makes a life meaningful, what love and companionship require, what duty remains when society is gone, and whether humanity deserves another beginning at all. Part philosophical fable, part intimate survival story, Ellis Merediths novel turns the end of the world into a searching debate about conscience, faith, and the fragile knot that binds two people - and an entire species - to hope. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:25:06) Chapter 02 (00:36:18) Chapter 03 (00:49:33) Chapter 04 (01:04:33) Chapter 05 (01:14:10) Chapter 06 (01:24:14) Chapter 07 (01:38:19) Chapter 08 (01:45:59) Chapter 09 (01:59:08) Chapter 10 (02:06:10) Chapter 11 (02:12:15) Chapter 12 (02:22:00) Chapter 13 (02:33:17) Chapter 14 (02:45:21) Chapter 15 (02:52:16) Chapter 16 (03:07:23) Chapter 17 (03:19:49) Chapter 18 (03:34:25) Chapter 19 (03:45:35) Chapter 20 (03:56:55) Chapter 21 (04:08:29) Chapter 22 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell audiobook. Genre: family If you like Jane Austen, you will probably like this book! Mrs. Gaskell, as she was often referred to, is considered one of the greatest British novelists of the Victorian era. She was one of the earliest novelists ever to use dialect in her works, finding often that no word but the vernacular would suffice to convey the meaning she wanted to achieve. She was the author of The Life of Charlotte Brontë, a much-acclaimed and sometimes-reviled biography of her friend and peer. Wives and Daughters revolves around Molly Gibson, only daughter of a widowed doctor living in a provincial English town in the 1830s. The novel was first published in the Cornhill Magazine as a serial from August 1864 to January 1866. When Mrs Gaskell died suddenly in 1865, it was not quite complete, and the last section was written by Frederick Greenwood. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:21:02) Chapter 02 (00:57:50) Chapter 03 (01:14:57) Chapter 04 (01:44:20) Chapter 05 (02:13:26) Chapter 06 (02:46:11) Chapter 07 (03:03:09) Chapter 08 (03:34:24) Chapter 09 (03:54:54) Chapter 10 (04:37:53) Chapter 11 (05:15:03) Chapter 12 (05:34:31) Chapter 13 (05:59:29) Chapter 14 (06:30:17) Chapter 15 (06:49:00) Chapter 16 (07:10:49) Chapter 17 (07:36:34) Chapter 18 (08:06:48) Chapter 19 (08:33:11) Chapter 20 (08:53:34) Chapter 21 (09:25:22) Chapter 22 (09:50:23) Chapter 23 (10:10:21) Chapter 24 (10:25:01) Chapter 25 (10:44:23) Chapter 26 (11:25:09) Chapter 27 (11:42:27) Chapter 28 (12:10:56) Chapter 29 (12:42:59) Chapter 30 (13:02:38) Chapter 31 (13:23:37) Chapter 32 (13:54:59) Chapter 33 (14:11:21) Chapter 34 (14:31:39) Chapter 35 (15:04:23) Chapter 36 (15:18:11) Chapter 37 (15:49:52) Chapter 38 (16:14:09) Chapter 39 (16:42:19) Chapter 40 (17:01:52) Chapter 41 (17:29:56) Chapter 42 (17:51:10) Chapter 43 (18:14:42) Chapter 44 (18:38:09) Chapter 45 (18:59:39) Chapter 46 (19:20:27) Chapter 47 (19:47:43) Chapter 48 (20:10:21) Chapter 49 (20:31:48) Chapter 50 (21:01:12) Chapter 51 (21:22:21) Chapter 52 (21:52:42) Chapter 53 (22:18:54) Chapter 54 (22:45:48) Chapter 55 (23:08:01) Chapter 56 (23:27:32) Chapter 57 (23:50:39) Chapter 58 (24:13:54) Chapter 59 (24:36:15) Chapter 60 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ruth by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell audiobook. Genre: drama The book is a social novel, dealing with Victorian views about sin and illegitimacy. It is a surprisingly compassionate portrayal of a 'fallen woman', a type of person normally outcast from respectable society. The title of the novel refers to the main character Ruth Hilton, an orphaned young seamstress who is seduced and then abandoned by gentleman Henry Bellingham. Ruth, pregnant and alone, is taken in by a minister and his sister. They conceal her single status under the pretense of widowhood in order to protect her child from the social stigma of illegitimacy. Ruth goes on to gain a respectable position in society as a governess, which is threatened by the return of Bellingham and the revelation of her secret. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:27:39) Chapter 02 (01:13:49) Chapter 03 (01:47:58) Chapter 04 (02:29:35) Chapter 05 (02:50:08) Chapter 06 (03:11:15) Chapter 07 (03:31:27) Chapter 08 (03:59:24) Chapter 09 (04:08:51) Chapter 10 (04:22:20) Chapter 11 (04:56:32) Chapter 12 (05:23:12) Chapter 13 (05:53:23) Chapter 14 (06:15:54) Chapter 15 (06:38:11) Chapter 16 (07:12:06) Chapter 17 (07:43:35) Chapter 18 (08:09:33) Chapter 19 (08:44:27) Chapter 20 (09:36:18) Chapter 21 (10:12:42) Chapter 22 (10:49:18) Chapter 23 (11:48:18) Chapter 24 (12:31:47) Chapter 25 (13:24:32) Chapter 26 (13:59:35) Chapter 27 (14:52:30) Chapter 28 (15:26:05) Chapter 29 (15:58:48) Chapter 30 (16:37:08) Chapter 31 (17:00:00) Chapter 32 (17:17:48) Chapter 33 (17:38:06) Chapter 34 (18:07:48) Chapter 35 (18:20:27) Chapter 36 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Round the Sofa by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell audiobook. Genre: family Round the Sofa (1859), is a book of stories by the lady that Charles Dickens called his “dear Scheherazade” due to her skill as a story teller. That Lady was Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell (North and South, Wives and Daughters, Cranford etc.). Mrs. Gaskell begins with Round the Sofa, a short story which she uses as a device to stitch together six previously published stories into a single work. It introduces us to a set of characters who take turns to recount stories to one another during their weekly soirée. My Lady Ludlow tells the story of the widowed, aristocratic Lady Ludlow and her fierce resistance to change. It is told through the eyes of one of her young charges. Incidentally, it was one of the books used to create the TV series Cranford. An Accursed Race is actually an essay about a persecuted minority group, the Cagots in Western France. The Doom of the Griffiths. A Gothic short story about a cursed family and set in Wales. Half a Life-Time Ago. A novella set in the Wiltshire Dales. The Poor Clare. A Ghostly short story! The Half Brothers. A sad short story about brotherly love and a sheep-dog dog named Lassie! For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:17:53) Chapter 02 (00:57:45) Chapter 03 (01:33:11) Chapter 04 (02:04:01) Chapter 05 (02:34:50) Chapter 06 (03:07:26) Chapter 07 (03:41:27) Chapter 08 (04:15:29) Chapter 09 (04:53:08) Chapter 10 (05:27:49) Chapter 11 (05:59:36) Chapter 12 (06:34:26) Chapter 13 (07:18:43) Chapter 14 (07:55:55) Chapter 15 (08:36:36) Chapter 16 (09:25:36) Chapter 17 (10:18:31) Chapter 18 (11:07:45) Chapter 19 (11:47:06) Chapter 20 (12:00:15) Chapter 21 (12:30:35) Chapter 22 (12:44:39) Chapter 23 (13:11:03) Chapter 24 (13:44:40) Chapter 25 (14:26:17) Chapter 26 (15:05:11) Chapter 27 (15:43:42) Chapter 28 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell audiobook. Genre: drama Set in Victorian England, North and South is the story of Margaret Hale, a young woman whose life is turned upside down when her family relocates to northern England. As an outsider from the agricultural south, Margaret is initially shocked by the aggressive northerners of the dirty, smoky industrial town of Milton. But as she adapts to her new home, she defies social conventions with her ready sympathy and defense of the working poor. Her passionate advocacy leads her to repeatedly clash with charismatic mill owner John Thornton over his treatment of his workers. While Margaret denies her growing attraction to him, Thornton agonizes over his foolish passion for her, in spite of their heated disagreements. As tensions mount between them, a violent unionization strike explodes in Milton, leaving everyone to deal with the aftermath in the town and in their personal lives. Elizabeth Gaskell serialized North and South between September 1854 and January 1855 in Charles Dickens’s magazine Household Words. Upon its publication, Gaskell established herself as a novelist capable of serious discourse on social responsibility and advocacy for change in defiance of established authority. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:25:19) Chapter 02 (00:44:09) Chapter 03 (01:06:59) Chapter 04 (01:33:01) Chapter 05 (02:02:25) Chapter 06 (02:17:21) Chapter 07 (02:36:06) Chapter 08 (02:59:07) Chapter 09 (03:08:58) Chapter 10 (03:29:29) Chapter 11 (03:47:35) Chapter 12 (04:01:13) Chapter 13 (04:17:29) Chapter 14 (04:31:13) Chapter 15 (05:09:16) Chapter 16 (05:29:20) Chapter 17 (05:49:54) Chapter 18 (06:10:34) Chapter 19 (06:39:34) Chapter 20 (07:03:01) Chapter 21 (07:23:16) Chapter 22 (07:57:52) Chapter 23 (08:15:47) Chapter 24 (08:30:55) Chapter 25 (08:58:14) Chapter 26 (09:11:48) Chapter 27 (09:27:10) Chapter 28 (10:10:45) Chapter 29 (10:25:34) Chapter 30 (10:56:38) Chapter 31 (11:21:23) Chapter 32 (11:33:00) Chapter 33 (11:45:58) Chapter 34 (11:58:14) Chapter 35 (12:34:34) Chapter 36 (13:01:12) Chapter 37 (13:25:29) Chapter 38 (13:57:45) Chapter 39 (14:20:42) Chapter 40 (14:53:15) Chapter 41 (15:22:52) Chapter 42 (15:49:49) Chapter 43 (16:11:30) Chapter 44 (16:35:50) Chapter 45 (16:43:03) Chapter 46 (17:29:33) Chapter 47 (17:42:24) Chapter 48 (17:57:22) Chapter 49 (18:12:15) Chapter 50 (18:37:11) Chapter 51 (18:53:20) Chapter 52 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mr. Harrison’s Confessions by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell audiobook. Genre: comedy It is asserted that the inspiration for Elizabeth Gaskell's marvellous stories of Cranford was her childhood home of Knutsford, a small town in Cheshire and to where she returned for a while as a young woman. This assertion is born out by an essay she wrote in 1849 entitled The Last Generation in England, in which she writes about 'The town in which I once resided ...'. There can be little doubt when reading this that it provided her with the template for Cranford. In 1851 the year she began to write Cranford, she also wrote a novella entitled Mr. Harrison's Confessions. It describes the life of a country doctor in a small provincial town. Mrs. Gaskell's model for this town could also only have been Knutsford which she knew and loved so well. The story revolves around the arrival in the town of a young doctor and the attempts of the ladies of the town to place his status within their society and of course to find him a suitable wife. It is often thought of as a prequel to Cranford Both of these pieces together with the novels, My Lady Ludlow and Cranford were used by the BBC to create the Television series Cranford in 2007. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:22:14) Chapter 2 (00:53:34) Chapter 3 (01:11:17) Chapter 4 (01:36:12) Chapter 5 (01:57:37) Chapter 6 (02:17:14) Chapter 7 (02:41:36) Chapter 8 (03:03:08) Chapter 9 (03:25:04) Chapter 10 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell audiobook. Genre: comedy Cranford is the best-known novel of the 19th century English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. It was first published in 1851 as a serial in the magazine Household Words, which was edited by Charles Dickens. The fictional town of Cranford is closely modelled on Knutsford in Cheshire, which Mrs Gaskell knew well. The book has little in the way of plot and is more a series of episodes in the lives of Mary Smith and her friends, Miss Matty and Miss Deborah, two spinster sisters. The 'major' event in the story is the return to Cranford of their long-lost brother, Peter, which in itself is only a minor portion of the work... For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:21:52) Chapter 02 (00:51:21) Chapter 03 (01:09:08) Chapter 04 (01:30:42) Chapter 05 (01:52:54) Chapter 06 (02:16:37) Chapter 07 (02:37:21) Chapter 08 (03:02:56) Chapter 09 (03:22:27) Chapter 10 (03:50:04) Chapter 11 (04:12:36) Chapter 12 (04:28:58) Chapter 13 (04:51:01) Chapter 14 (05:26:06) Chapter 15 (05:51:11) Chapter 16 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cousin Phillis by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell audiobook. Genre: drama In a quiet corner of rural England, young Paul Manning begins his first job on a new railway line, commuting between the noise of industry and the calm of his relatives' farm. There he meets Cousin Phillis Holman, a gifted, well-read minister's daughter whose life is shaped by hard work, faith, and the close-knit rhythms of family. Phillis is intelligent and passionate, yet sheltered, and Paul quickly finds himself drawn into the warmth of the Holman household and the subtle tensions that come with a changing world. When an older engineer arrives, bringing wider experience and an easy charm, Paul becomes an uneasy witness to shifting affections and unspoken hopes. As the railway pushes forward, so do questions about duty, love, and the cost of awakening to feelings that cannot be neatly managed. Elizabeth Gaskell paints a tender, realistic portrait of first love, friendship, and moral responsibility, set against the contrast between pastoral tradition and modern progress, where small choices carry lasting emotional weight. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:24:38) Chapter 2 (00:54:05) Chapter 3 (01:25:47) Chapter 4 (01:51:28) Chapter 5 (02:15:40) Chapter 6 (02:35:20) Chapter 7 (03:08:15) Chapter 8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peace on Earth, Good Will to Dogs by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott audiobook. Genre: romance If you don't like Christmas stories, don't read this one! And if you don't like dogs, I don't know just what to advise you to do! For I warn you perfectly frankly that I am distinctly pro-dog and distinctly pro-Christmas, and would like to bring to this little story whatever whiff of fir-balsam I can cajole from the make-believe forest in my typewriter, and every glitter of tinsel, smudge of toy candle, crackle of wrapping paper, that my particular brand of brain and ink can conjure up on a single keyboard! And very large-sized dogs shall romp through every page! And the mercury shiver perpetually in the vicinity of zero! And every foot of earth be crusty-brown and bare with no white snow at all till the very last moment when you'd just about given up hope! And all the heart of the story is very,—oh very young! For purposes of propriety and general historical authenticity there are of course parents in the story. And one or two other oldish persons. But they all go away just as early in the narrative as I can manage it.—Are obliged to go away! Yet lest you find in this general combination of circumstances some sinister threat of audacity, let me conventionalize the story at once by opening it at that most conventional of all conventional Christmas-story hours,—the Twilight of Christmas Eve.' For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:47:45) Chapter 02 (01:24:48) Chapter 03 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pollyanna Grows Up by Eleanor H. Porter audiobook. Genre: family Pollyanna, now cured of her crippling spinal injury, and able to walk again, goes to live in Boston with Mrs. Carew, a heart-broken woman searching for her lost nephew. Her Aunt Polly goes abroad with her new Uncle, Dr. Chilton. While in Boston, Pollyanna meets new friends and has several interesting adventures... A startling change in Aunt Polly's and Pollyanna's circumstances require Pollyanna to come up with a workable solution. Pollyanna's solution brings all her new friends from Boston and her old friends in Beldingsville together. Pollyanna also discovers she has to make a choice. Who will win her heart? For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:19:16) Chapter 02 (00:44:32) Chapter 03 (01:05:13) Chapter 04 (01:21:31) Chapter 05 (01:54:22) Chapter 06 (02:11:17) Chapter 07 (02:26:43) Chapter 08 (02:45:21) Chapter 09 (02:59:59) Chapter 10 (03:20:36) Chapter 11 (03:36:38) Chapter 12 (03:52:20) Chapter 13 (04:16:29) Chapter 14 (04:28:40) Chapter 15 (04:38:57) Chapter 16 (04:58:05) Chapter 17 (05:18:06) Chapter 18 (05:32:50) Chapter 19 (05:49:35) Chapter 20 (06:05:49) Chapter 21 (06:20:36) Chapter 22 (06:38:24) Chapter 23 (06:47:01) Chapter 24 (07:04:48) Chapter 25 (07:21:26) Chapter 26 (07:33:03) Chapter 27 (07:47:36) Chapter 28 (08:02:50) Chapter 29 (08:15:31) Chapter 30 (08:27:12) Chapter 31 (08:50:12) Chapter 32 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just David by Eleanor H. Porter audiobook. Genre: family After the death of his beloved father, a gentle, wide-eyed boy named David is sent from a lonely mountain home to live with relatives he has never met. He arrives with little more than a violin, a few simple habits shaped by hardship, and a disarming way of seeing the best in everyone. In the small New England town of Bethel, David is taken in by his stern, reclusive uncle, Eben Holly, whose years of bitterness have walled off his heart from neighbors and family alike. But David does not understand walls. Moving through the village with earnest curiosity and a musician's sensitivity, he befriends shopkeepers, children, and lonely adults, quietly stirring up long-buried regrets and half-healed quarrels. His innocent questions and unwavering faith in goodness begin to challenge old grudges, even as misunderstandings and the town's gossip threaten to turn kindness into trouble. With music as his language and compassion as his compass, David becomes an unexpected force in a community that has forgotten how to forgive, and in a household that has forgotten how to love. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:15:46) Chapter 02 (00:34:19) Chapter 03 (00:48:48) Chapter 04 (01:10:06) Chapter 05 (01:27:56) Chapter 06 (01:47:57) Chapter 07 (02:04:34) Chapter 08 (02:21:53) Chapter 09 (02:40:43) Chapter 10 (02:58:36) Chapter 11 (03:10:47) Chapter 12 (03:20:20) Chapter 13 (03:35:28) Chapter 14 (03:49:01) Chapter 15 (04:02:25) Chapter 16 (04:15:51) Chapter 17 (04:35:10) Chapter 18 (04:54:40) Chapter 19 (05:07:42) Chapter 20 (05:22:44) Chapter 21 (05:34:25) Chapter 22 (05:47:04) Chapter 23 (06:04:31) Chapter 24 (06:17:02) Chapter 25 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Steam Man of the Prairies by Edward S. Ellis audiobook. Genre: adventure When the vast American frontier still feels unmapped and unforgiving, teenage adventurers Johnny Brainerd and his friend Kit discover a startling invention that seems torn from a dream: a towering, human-shaped machine powered by steam and built to stride across the open prairie. Guided by its brilliant young creator, the boys are swept into a high-speed journey where ingenuity becomes their greatest weapon and the wilderness offers dangers no blueprint can predict. As the strange mechanical giant draws attention, the travelers find themselves tested by treacherous terrain, scarce supplies, and hostile forces that see the Steam Man as either a prize to claim or a threat to destroy. Part chase story, part survival tale, the novel pits curiosity and courage against fear of the new, asking what progress means when law and safety are far behind. With each mile, friendship hardens into loyalty, and the humming engine at their side becomes more than a marvel - it is their chance to outpace peril, prove themselves, and carve a path through the prairies where anything can happen. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:09:49) Chapter 02 (00:18:48) Chapter 03 (00:28:11) Chapter 04 (00:37:24) Chapter 05 (00:46:44) Chapter 06 (00:56:19) Chapter 07 (01:05:17) Chapter 08 (01:13:59) Chapter 09 (01:22:56) Chapter 10 (01:31:12) Chapter 11 (01:40:24) Chapter 12 (01:48:53) Chapter 13 (01:55:50) Chapter 14 (02:04:38) Chapter 15 (02:15:00) Chapter 16 (02:23:50) Chapter 17 (02:33:04) Chapter 18 (02:42:21) Chapter 19 (02:50:27) Chapter 20 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nonsense Verses by Edward Lear audiobook. Genre: poetry This is a collection of some of the delightful nonsense verses and stories by Edward Lear. A lot of them are also my favorites. The Jumblies, The Owl and the Pussy-cat; the Broom, the Shovel, The Poker and the Tongs; The Duck and the Kangaroo; The Cummerbund; The Dong with the Luminous Nose; The New Vestments; Calico Pie; The courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo and Incidents in the Life of My Uncle Arly. Also included at no extra cost are two sections with my favorite Lear limericks. Only about 30 of them but they are all funny and full of delectable silliness. I hope you enjoy listening to these as much as I enjoyed recording them. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:04:38) Chapter 02 (00:06:28) Chapter 03 (00:09:02) Chapter 04 (00:11:18) Chapter 05 (00:13:40) Chapter 06 (00:19:09) Chapter 07 (00:22:15) Chapter 08 (00:23:50) Chapter 09 (00:28:51) Chapter 10 (00:31:38) Chapter 11 (00:37:31) Chapter 12 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Book of Nonsense by Edward Lear audiobook. Genre: poetry Edward Lear's A Book of Nonsense is a mischievous classic of comic verse that invites listeners into a world where logic takes a holiday and language becomes a toy. First published in the Victorian era and best known for its sparkling limericks, this collection parades an unforgettable cast: the Old Person of Peru, the Old Man with a beard, the Old Person of Phil-a-delphia, and dozens more eccentrics whose odd habits, wild inventions, and sudden mishaps unfold in five brisk lines at a time. Each poem sets up a miniature scene with clockwork rhythm and then snaps delightfully off course, turning everyday expectations into absurd surprises. Behind the silliness is Lear's sharp ear for sound, his love of repetition and internal rhyme, and his gentle satire of social rules that try (and fail) to contain imagination. Whether you come for the singsong cadences, the gleeful wordplay, or the sheer parade of beautifully pointless predicaments, A Book of Nonsense offers a bright, brisk listening experience that rewards both children and adults with laughter and a renewed sense of the delight in the impossible. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:05:37) Chapter 02 (00:10:14) Chapter 03 (00:15:24) Chapter 04 (00:21:01) Chapter 05 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Masters of Space by Edward E. Smith audiobook. Genre: scifi In Masters of Space, classic pulp-era science fiction expands from a hard-nosed naval expedition into a mystery about vanished powers that once ruled the galaxy. Jarvis Hilton, a young but driven leader, is put in charge of Project Theta Orionis: a handpicked team of scientists and officers aboard the warship Perseus, sent far from Earth to secure vital radioactive fuel ore and prove that humanity can push into deeper space. Tensions aboard ship flare immediately as Jarvis must earn authority in the shadow of seasoned military command, keeping brilliant specialists focused while pride, protocol, and ambition collide. Then the Perseus is forced into a baffling encounter with an eerie, skeletal object and glimpses of an impossible battle, signs that the crew has stumbled into a much older conflict. Their discoveries only deepen when they reach a world rich in dangerous resources and meet humanoid, machine-like beings who treat the newcomers not as strangers, but as returning masters. With ancient enemies stirring and the legacy of the Masters hanging over every decision, Jarvis and his crew must decide what kind of power humanity is willing to claim, and what it might cost. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:14:07) Chapter 02 (00:43:55) Chapter 03 (01:44:28) Chapter 04 (02:05:01) Chapter 05 (02:38:50) Chapter 06 (03:03:04) Chapter 07 (03:36:46) Chapter 08 (04:08:35) Chapter 09 (04:39:31) Chapter 10 (05:08:03) Chapter 11 (05:44:38) Chapter 12 (06:15:59) Chapter 13 (06:38:37) Chapter 14 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Short History of the US by Edward Channing audiobook. Genre: history Written for students and general readers, Edward Channing's A Short History of the United States distills the long sweep of American development into a clear, tightly organized narrative. Beginning with early voyages, exploration, and the first European footholds, Channing traces the hard work of colonization, the growth of regional societies, and the steady pressures that pushed separate colonies toward cooperation and conflict. He follows the road to independence and the Revolutionary War, then turns to the uneasy years of nation-building: the debates over the Constitution, the rise of political parties, and the challenges of governing a young republic. As the country expands westward, Channing keeps a sharp focus on the moral and political crisis of slavery, showing how disputes over territory and power deepened sectional tensions. The Civil War and the struggle to reunite the nation lead into Reconstruction, followed by the rapid national development of the late 19th century. Designed as a practical, teachable history, the book emphasizes causes and consequences, explains key institutions and ideas, and often includes foundational documents alongside the story. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:13:38) Chapter 02 (00:27:43) Chapter 03 (00:41:46) Chapter 04 (00:54:49) Chapter 05 (01:02:27) Chapter 06 (01:21:17) Chapter 07 (01:32:34) Chapter 08 (02:00:54) Chapter 09 (02:26:32) Chapter 10 (02:45:41) Chapter 11 (03:12:03) Chapter 12 (03:33:11) Chapter 13 (03:49:57) Chapter 14 (04:16:38) Chapter 15 (04:35:43) Chapter 16 (04:55:05) Chapter 17 (05:11:14) Chapter 18 (05:31:52) Chapter 19 (05:51:14) Chapter 20 (06:07:07) Chapter 21 (06:20:49) Chapter 22 (06:38:33) Chapter 23 (07:06:24) Chapter 24 (07:30:27) Chapter 25 (07:45:57) Chapter 26 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Dancing Girls by Edna Ferber audiobook. Genre: drama In The Dancing Girls, Edna Ferber gathers four sharp, warmhearted stories about ordinary people pushed to their limits by class, family obligation, and war. In the title tale, Chippewa, Wisconsin, is split cleanly by money and by the railroad tracks. Floyd 'Chug' Scaritt, a talented young garage owner and irresistible dance partner, knows exactly where he stands - until a late-night accident and the sudden demands of World War I briefly scramble the town's social rules. As uniforms, dances, and patriotic committees bring unlikely people together, Chug discovers a different kind of girl - and a different kind of future - than the one his old crowd expects. In 'Old Lady Mandle,' a proud Chicago matriarch reigns over her devoted son until a new wife threatens the balance of power. 'Long Distance' follows a wounded American soldier in an English rehabilitation hospital, where love letters and memory wage a quiet battle. And in 'One Hundred Per Cent,' the indomitable Emma McChesney Buck returns to work and travel, determined to put every ounce of herself into the home-front effort. Together, these stories blend humor, tenderness, and unsparing social observation. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:49:44) Chapter 2 (01:41:21) Chapter 3 (01:53:39) Chapter 4 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Roast Beef, Medium by Edna Ferber audiobook. Genre: drama This book follows the adventures of Emma McChesney, a smart and savvy divorced mother who travels the Midwest as a sales representative for a large skirt and petticoat manufacturer. Her many adventures with people, (including predatory salesmen and hotel clerks), are funny and poignant. She is hardworking and able to outsell the slickest of the men salesmen. She has learned to focus on her work and her seventeen-year-old son, Jock. Experience has taught her that it is usually best to stick to roast beef, medium and not get stomach ache with fancy sauces and exotic dishes. This is the first of three volumes following the career and adventures of Emma McChesney. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:02:57) Chapter 01 (00:26:56) Chapter 02 (00:52:09) Chapter 03 (01:16:53) Chapter 04 (01:43:30) Chapter 05 (02:11:55) Chapter 06 (02:38:35) Chapter 07 (03:05:36) Chapter 08 (03:38:27) Chapter 09 (04:13:19) Chapter 10 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Personality Plus by Edna Ferber audiobook. Genre: drama Set in bustling early 1900s New York, Personality Plus follows Emma McChesney, a stylish, sharp-witted divorced mother who has fought her way up from life on the road to a coveted seat in the office as partner in the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company. With a real home at last and a new level of responsibility, Emma expects challenges - but not necessarily from the person she loves most. Her son, Jock, is twenty-one and determined to conquer the advertising world on his own terms, armed with confidence, charm, and a hunger to prove that modern hustle beats old-school know-how. As Jock dazzles coworkers and courts big accounts, his gift for selling can slide into showmanship, bending rules and bruising egos. When business pressures mount and a high-stakes campaign pulls mother and son into the same orbit, Emma must defend the value of experience, ethics, and steady judgment - even as she confronts her own doubts about what success should look like. With brisk dialogue, humor, and social insight, Ferber delivers a lively clash of ambition and integrity, and a portrait of a woman refusing to be sidelined in either boardroom or family. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:31:07) Chapter 2 (01:01:58) Chapter 3 (01:33:07) Chapter 4 (02:11:54) Chapter 5 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One Basket by Edna Ferber audiobook. Genre: drama One Basket gathers Edna Ferber's most memorable short fiction into a single, wide-ranging portrait of American life, chosen and introduced by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author herself. Spanning decades and shifting from small-town streets to city apartments, from cramped kitchens to prosperous parlors, these stories follow people caught between what they want and what their communities will allow. Women stand at the center: a notorious beauty trying to live down a past in The Woman Who Tried to Be Good, wives and husbands learning that love can be both tenderness and negotiation, and mothers confronting the quiet power and pressure of family bonds. Ferber writes with a reporter's eye for telling detail and a dramatist's instinct for dialogue, revealing how class, reputation, ambition, and longing shape ordinary choices. Some tales are wryly comic, others sharp-edged and moving, but each turns on the same question: what does it cost to become the person you claim to be? With brief author prefaces that illuminate her craft and themes, One Basket is both an inviting introduction and a rich retrospective of Ferber's storytelling range. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:28:25) Chapter 2 (01:20:00) Chapter 3 (02:16:08) Chapter 4 (03:13:21) Chapter 5 (04:09:46) Chapter 6 (04:22:01) Chapter 7 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Valley of Decision by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: history Set in late 18th-century Italy on the eve of the French Revolution, Edith Wharton's debut novel follows Odo Valsecca, a sensitive boy raised among peasants who learns that his blood ties him to a ruling house. When a sudden turn of fortune draws him into aristocratic life and positions him to inherit the dukedom of Pianura, Odo arrives with a reformer's hopes shaped by Enlightenment ideas and by the hardships he has witnessed at the bottom of the social order. Court etiquette, church authority, and entrenched privilege, however, prove as formidable as any enemy, and Odo discovers that power is a maze of compromises, allies, and hidden costs. At the center of his private life is Fulvia Vivaldi, a brilliant and daring liberal whose convictions both inspire and endanger him, forcing Odo to weigh love and loyalty against prudence and duty. As political factions harden and unrest spreads, Odo must decide what kind of ruler he will be, and what he is willing to sacrifice to make change real. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:00:45) Chapter 01 (00:18:28) Chapter 02 (00:36:27) Chapter 03 (00:50:24) Chapter 04 (01:11:14) Chapter 05 (01:28:18) Chapter 06 (01:52:57) Chapter 07 (02:11:38) Chapter 08 (02:39:56) Chapter 09 (02:57:05) Chapter 10 (03:14:56) Chapter 11 (03:27:21) Chapter 12 (03:45:48) Chapter 13 (04:15:33) Chapter 14 (04:35:44) Chapter 15 (04:55:52) Chapter 16 (05:17:55) Chapter 17 (05:24:29) Chapter 18 (05:40:27) Chapter 19 (06:12:04) Chapter 20 (06:38:08) Chapter 21 (07:06:30) Chapter 22 (07:29:32) Chapter 23 (07:52:17) Chapter 24 (08:25:25) Chapter 25 (09:06:53) Chapter 26 (09:50:30) Chapter 27 (10:11:54) Chapter 28 (11:00:39) Chapter 29 (11:23:27) Chapter 30 (11:46:27) Chapter 31 (12:18:58) Chapter 32 (12:40:43) Chapter 33 (13:08:34) Chapter 34 (13:31:53) Chapter 35 (13:55:33) Chapter 36 (14:04:26) Chapter 37 (14:26:30) Chapter 38 (14:47:09) Chapter 39 (15:03:46) Chapter 40 (15:30:07) Chapter 41 (15:53:50) Chapter 42 (16:15:49) Chapter 43 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Touchstone by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: drama In turn-of-the-century New York, Stephen Glennard is a promising but faltering man of letters with one urgent desire: to marry Alexa Trent, the gracious woman he loves. But with his career slipping and money running out, Stephen finds himself trapped between respectability and desperation. A tempting opportunity appears when he realizes he still possesses a cache of intensely personal letters written to him by Margaret Aubyn, a celebrated author who is now dead and newly idolized by the literary world. Publishing such a correspondence could bring a fortune - and it would be easy to hide his own connection to it. Yet the choice forces Stephen to measure what, exactly, he is willing to trade for comfort, status, and a future with Alexa. As the letters begin to circulate, their intimate voice draws readers in and throws Stephen into a tightening web of secrecy, shame, and self-justification. Edith Wharton turns a seemingly simple act into a piercing moral drama about ambition, betrayal, and the cost of building a life on another person's most private truths. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:10:34) Chapter 02 (00:27:57) Chapter 03 (00:35:36) Chapter 04 (00:51:42) Chapter 05 (01:03:05) Chapter 06 (01:18:11) Chapter 07 (01:30:19) Chapter 08 (01:44:24) Chapter 09 (01:51:23) Chapter 10 (02:01:20) Chapter 11 (02:05:46) Chapter 12 (02:17:19) Chapter 13 (02:31:47) Chapter 14 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: drama Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth follows Lily Bart, a beautiful, intelligent young woman trying to secure her place in New York's glittering Gilded Age society. With little money of her own and mounting debts, Lily must navigate a world where status is currency and marriage is often treated as a transaction. Moving between lavish drawing rooms, country weekends, and whispered gossip, she balances her desire for comfort and independence against the unforgiving rules that govern her reputation. Key friendships and rivalries shape her path: the steady, watchful presence of Lawrence Selden offers glimpses of a freer life, while powerful social gatekeepers and would-be benefactors test how far Lily is willing to bend. As small missteps are magnified into scandal, Lily faces escalating pressure to choose security at any cost or risk being pushed to the margins. Sharp, tragicomic, and psychologically precise, Wharton's novel exposes the moral compromises of wealth, the fragility of social standing, and the personal toll of living as an ornament in a society built to break the unprotected. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:27:10) Chapter 2 (00:47:32) Chapter 3 (01:20:56) Chapter 4 (01:47:50) Chapter 5 (02:15:55) Chapter 6 (02:42:39) Chapter 7 (03:07:27) Chapter 8 (03:35:51) Chapter 9 (04:04:40) Chapter 10 (04:25:15) Chapter 11 (04:44:01) Chapter 12 (05:09:29) Chapter 13 (05:33:19) Chapter 14 (06:17:23) Chapter 15 (06:45:30) Chapter 16 (07:15:16) Chapter 17 (07:47:34) Chapter 18 (08:16:44) Chapter 19 (08:41:07) Chapter 20 (09:04:29) Chapter 21 (09:31:32) Chapter 22 (09:50:56) Chapter 23 (10:19:17) Chapter 24 (10:40:45) Chapter 25 (11:14:52) Chapter 26 (11:33:26) Chapter 27 (11:47:54) Chapter 28 (12:18:57) Chapter 29 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Greater Inclination by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: drama First published in 1899, The Greater Inclination introduces Edith Wharton at the start of her career with a collection of short stories that cut through the polite surface of late-19th-century society. Across drawing rooms, country estates, and chance encounters abroad, Wharton follows men and women who discover that a single choice can tilt an entire life: a young person torn between comfort and integrity, an artist or dreamer forced to bargain with convention, a marriage strained by unspoken expectations, a friendship tested by money and reputation. With crisp dialogue and an unsparing eye for social rules, Wharton turns small gestures - a letter withheld, a visit delayed, a glance misread - into high-stakes moral drama. The stories share a quiet intensity, asking what it costs to pursue love, freedom, or self-respect when everyone around you is keeping score. Elegant, ironic, and emotionally precise, this collection is both a portrait of a world obsessed with appearances and a timeless study of desire, duty, and the private rebellions people risk when they dare to want more. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:31:41) Chapter 2 (00:56:43) Chapter 3 (01:37:35) Chapter 4 (02:36:38) Chapter 5 (03:09:44) Chapter 6 (03:35:44) Chapter 7 (04:32:15) Chapter 8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: drama Edith Wharton's The Glimpses of the Moon follows Susy Branch and Nick Lansing, two charming, cash-strapped members of New York's glittering social orbit who decide to marry for love while trying to outmaneuver the realities of money. Their plan is to live lightly, borrowing the luxuries of their wealthy friends and drifting from one borrowed house party, yacht trip, and country weekend to the next. But the thin line between freedom and dependence quickly tightens. As invitations come with expectations, and kindness carries hidden costs, Susy and Nick discover how easily a marriage can be strained by envy, pride, and the quiet humiliations of always needing something. When tempting alternatives appear in the form of richer companions and more stable futures, the couple must confront what they truly owe each other - and what they are willing to sacrifice to keep love from turning into a transaction. With Wharton's sharp eye for social performance and emotional truth, the novel explores devotion, ambition, and the price of belonging in a world where comfort is never free. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:17:16) Chapter 02 (00:31:26) Chapter 03 (00:42:33) Chapter 04 (00:57:32) Chapter 05 (01:11:02) Chapter 06 (01:23:44) Chapter 07 (01:40:46) Chapter 08 (01:54:07) Chapter 09 (02:12:17) Chapter 10 (02:28:25) Chapter 11 (02:42:30) Chapter 12 (03:02:46) Chapter 13 (03:21:36) Chapter 14 (03:35:11) Chapter 15 (03:53:33) Chapter 16 (04:08:59) Chapter 17 (04:26:53) Chapter 18 (04:41:24) Chapter 19 (05:00:30) Chapter 20 (05:19:32) Chapter 21 (05:35:04) Chapter 22 (05:50:29) Chapter 23 (06:06:35) Chapter 24 (06:20:02) Chapter 25 (06:40:34) Chapter 26 (06:56:32) Chapter 27 (07:06:05) Chapter 28 (07:18:42) Chapter 29 (07:37:46) Chapter 30 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: drama In early 20th-century New England, young social worker Justine Brent arrives in the hill town of Hanaford determined to make herself useful, only to find that good intentions can collide with privilege, tradition, and the messy realities of care. Drawn into the orbit of the wealthy Amherst family, Justine becomes companion and confidante to the restless, idealistic John Amherst and his ailing wife, Bessy, whose chronic pain and fragile nerves dominate the household. As Justine and John throw themselves into reforming a local mill town and improving workers' lives, private crises begin to threaten their public mission. When an accident and a long convalescence push the family to the edge, Justine is forced to weigh duty against compassion and ask what mercy truly means, especially when law, medicine, and social judgment offer no clear answers. Edith Wharton crafts a tense, morally complex story about conscience and consequence, love and loyalty, and the price of acting on principle in a world that rarely forgives difficult choices. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:06:44) Chapter 02 (00:38:46) Chapter 03 (01:04:38) Chapter 04 (01:38:16) Chapter 05 (02:09:23) Chapter 06 (02:36:42) Chapter 07 (03:05:47) Chapter 08 (03:26:02) Chapter 09 (03:46:36) Chapter 10 (04:10:52) Chapter 11 (04:34:21) Chapter 12 (05:03:49) Chapter 13 (05:21:23) Chapter 14 (05:45:43) Chapter 15 (06:03:50) Chapter 16 (06:22:06) Chapter 17 (06:52:57) Chapter 18 (07:12:22) Chapter 19 (07:32:33) Chapter 20 (07:46:22) Chapter 21 (08:09:31) Chapter 22 (08:30:58) Chapter 23 (08:46:08) Chapter 24 (09:12:00) Chapter 25 (09:33:59) Chapter 26 (09:50:11) Chapter 27 (10:07:55) Chapter 28 (10:30:23) Chapter 29 (10:48:25) Chapter 30 (11:13:44) Chapter 31 (11:32:00) Chapter 32 (11:48:53) Chapter 33 (12:05:31) Chapter 34 (12:33:16) Chapter 35 (12:44:37) Chapter 36 (13:09:08) Chapter 37 (13:25:52) Chapter 38 (13:45:10) Chapter 39 (14:15:47) Chapter 40 (14:39:29) Chapter 41 (14:59:47) Chapter 42 (15:16:40) Chapter 43 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tales of Men and Ghosts by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: horror Tales of Men and Ghosts was published as a collection in 1910, though the first eight of the stories had earlier appeared in Scribner's and the last two in the Century Magazine. Despite the title, the men outnumber the ghosts, since only 'The Eyes' and 'Afterward' actually call on the supernatural. In only two of the stories are women the central characters, though elsewhere they play important roles. Wharton enjoys subjecting her subjects -- all of them American gentlemen and gentlewomen, in the conventional senses of the word -- to various moral tests and sometimes ironic tests. Some of the stories deal with the intellectual fashions of the day -- 'The Blond Beast' basing itself, to some degree, on Nietzsche, and 'The Debt' on variants of Darwinism. Though 'Afterward' is set in England, and 'The Letters' in France, the rest of the stories are squarely in Wharton's own New York city, rather than (say) in what she calls 'the soul-deadening ugliness of the Middle West,' thus avoiding the need to come to terms with what fashion-conscious New Yorkers still today call 'fly-over country' for everything that lies between the west bank of the Hudson River and San Francisco Bay. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:56:02) Chapter 02 (01:34:57) Chapter 03 (02:13:30) Chapter 04 (02:43:21) Chapter 05 (03:16:18) Chapter 06 (04:07:45) Chapter 07 (05:09:40) Chapter 08 (05:55:08) Chapter 09 (06:54:57) Chapter 10 (08:05:11) Chapter 11 (08:44:56) Chapter 12 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Summer by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: drama In a secluded New England village called North Dormer, Charity Royall has grown up feeling both restless and trapped, raised by the stern, older lawyer who rescued her from the impoverished Mountain community nearby. When Lucius Harney, a young architect from the city, arrives to study local houses, his curiosity about the town and his easy confidence awaken Charity's longing for a larger life and a different future. Drawn into a summer of walks, talks, and secret meetings, Charity begins to test the boundaries of what her small world permits, even as gossip, class prejudice, and her own uncertain origins tighten around her. As the season turns, she faces hard choices about love, belonging, and the price of independence in a place that measures a woman's worth by her reputation. Edith Wharton crafts a tense, intimate portrait of desire colliding with duty, and of a young woman struggling to claim her identity in a community that refuses to forget where she came from. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:16:40) Chapter 02 (00:34:45) Chapter 03 (00:45:58) Chapter 04 (00:53:49) Chapter 05 (01:11:10) Chapter 06 (01:36:42) Chapter 07 (02:00:11) Chapter 08 (02:19:18) Chapter 09 (02:40:02) Chapter 10 (02:55:57) Chapter 11 (03:14:51) Chapter 12 (03:38:27) Chapter 13 (03:51:27) Chapter 14 (04:05:31) Chapter 15 (04:35:56) Chapter 16 (05:01:44) Chapter 17 (05:19:26) Chapter 18 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices