-
Heart of Darkness: A Signature Performance by Kenneth Branagh
- Narrated by: Kenneth Branagh
- Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $14.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Editorial reviews
"The horror! The horror!" In this brooding and justly celebrated novella of 1902, seaman Charles Marlow is cruising quietly down the Thames at dusk with some friends. As night begins to fall, he tells them of his harrowing journey down an African river in search of the unscrupulous and near-legendary ivory trader named Kurtz, a quest deep into inky spiritual and symbolic darkness. Acclaimed Irish actor/director Kenneth Branagh impersonates Marlow in this recording. Admirably, while fully playing the drama, he never goes overboard. He plays the tale for the great yarn that it is. But had he taken more cognizance of its trajectory and subtleties, he would have made the listening experience far richer than he has.
Publisher's summary
Prose that demands to be read aloud requires a special kind of narrator. For the Audible Signature Classics edition of Joseph Conrad’s atmospheric masterpiece, Heart of Darkness, we called upon four-time Academy Award nominee Kenneth Branagh.
Branagh’s performance is riveting because he reads as though he’s telling a ghost story by a campfire, capturing the story’s sense of claustrophobia, while hinting at the storyteller Marlow’s own creeping madness. Heart of Darkness follows Captain Marlow into the colonial Congo where he searches for a mysterious ivory trader, Kurtz, and discovers an evil that will haunt him forever.
With this landmark work, Conrad is credited with bringing the novel into the twentieth century; we think Branagh brings it into the twenty-first.
Stay tuned for more one-of-a-kind performances from actors David Hyde Pierce, Leelee Sobieski, Tim Curry, and more, only from Audible Signature Classics.
Listen to more Audible Signature Classics.
Critic reviews
Featured Article: 35+ Quotes About Hard Work to Keep You Motivated and Moving Forward
The things most worth doing require the most from us—it takes hard work to accomplish important tasks, achieve major goals, and realize your dreams. Commitment, sweat, exhaustion, frustration, and a willingness to fail are all necessary parts of taking on challenges. When you’re in the middle of a difficult project, there will be times when you’re tempted to simply give up. In such moments, look to these quotes about hard work to keep you going.
Related to this topic
-
Nostromo
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the great adventure novels of our language creates a most engaging central character, Nostromo. A picturesque man of action and popular hero, Nostromo lives to be "well-spoken of" by the citizens of Costaguana, the mythical South American banana republic where the story takes place. Around this figure, Conrad spins a story of revolution, politics, and racial conflict as complex as Nostromo, the man whose greatest enemy is himself.
-
-
Wow!
- By Amazon Customer on 07-11-03
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Victory
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of the greatest modern writers in world literature comes a magnificent story of love, adventure, and rescue played out against the shimmering South Seas. Alone on a tropical island, a Swedish baron and a beautiful violinist discover the long-lost joys of love. But when two treasure hunters arrive on the beach, the lovers know that evil has invaded their romantic paradise—an evil they are powerless to stop.
-
-
Beautiful, sad and powerful
- By Darwin8u on 01-20-13
By: Joseph Conrad
-
H. P. Lovecraft's Book of the Supernatural
- 20 Classic Tales of the Macabre, Chosen by the Master of Horror Himself
- By: Henry James, Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, and others
- Narrated by: Davina Porter, Steven Crossley, Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
H. P. Lovecraft is arguably the most important horror writer of the 20th century. Culled from his 1927 essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature”, Lovecraft acknowledges those authors and stories that he feels are the very finest the horror field has to offer, including Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Guy de Maupassant, Ambrose Bierce, and Arthur Conan Doyle. This chilling collection includes 20 works, each prefaced by Lovecraft's own opinions and insights in each author’s work.
-
-
Not all the stories are complete
- By SteffiT on 10-21-13
By: Henry James, and others
-
Tales of Terror
- By: Edgar Allan Poe
- Narrated by: Jack Foreman
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edgar Allan Poe, the master of terror, wrote some of literature's most entertaining and influential short stories, works that invented or anticipated modern detective novels, science fiction, and the horror genre. Tales of Terror collects nine of Poe's best-loved stories, all performed in chilling, highly dramatic readings by Jack Foreman. This collection includes such classics as "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Fall of the House of Usher", and what many consider his masterpiece, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."
-
-
Poe's Best Horror by an Outstanding Narrator
- By Gary on 08-29-04
By: Edgar Allan Poe
-
The Scarlet Pimpernel
- By: Baroness Orczy
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set during the Reign of Terror following the start of the French Revolution... The title character represents the original "hero with a secret identity" that inspired subsequent literary creations such as Don Diego de la Vega (El Zorro) and Bruce Wayne (the Batman). The popularity of the novel encouraged Orczy to write a number of sequels for her "reckless daredevil" over the next 35 years. The original play was performed to great acclaim in France, Italy, Germany, and Spain, while the novel was translated into 16 languages.
-
-
This version does not do the novel justice!
- By Wayne on 12-04-18
By: Baroness Orczy
-
Sacred Hunger
- By: Barry Unsworth
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 22 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this Booker Prize-winning work, Barry Unsworth follows the failing fortunes of William Kemp, a merchant pinning his last chance to a slave ship; his son, who needs a fortune because he is in love with an upper-class woman; and his nephew, who sails on the ship as its doctor because he has lost all he has loved. The voyage meets its demise when disease spreads among the slaves and the captain's drastic response provokes a mutiny.
-
-
Wise, Perceptive, Heart-breaking
- By S. Coldsmith on 04-16-16
By: Barry Unsworth
-
Nostromo
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the great adventure novels of our language creates a most engaging central character, Nostromo. A picturesque man of action and popular hero, Nostromo lives to be "well-spoken of" by the citizens of Costaguana, the mythical South American banana republic where the story takes place. Around this figure, Conrad spins a story of revolution, politics, and racial conflict as complex as Nostromo, the man whose greatest enemy is himself.
-
-
Wow!
- By Amazon Customer on 07-11-03
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Victory
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of the greatest modern writers in world literature comes a magnificent story of love, adventure, and rescue played out against the shimmering South Seas. Alone on a tropical island, a Swedish baron and a beautiful violinist discover the long-lost joys of love. But when two treasure hunters arrive on the beach, the lovers know that evil has invaded their romantic paradise—an evil they are powerless to stop.
-
-
Beautiful, sad and powerful
- By Darwin8u on 01-20-13
By: Joseph Conrad
-
H. P. Lovecraft's Book of the Supernatural
- 20 Classic Tales of the Macabre, Chosen by the Master of Horror Himself
- By: Henry James, Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, and others
- Narrated by: Davina Porter, Steven Crossley, Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
H. P. Lovecraft is arguably the most important horror writer of the 20th century. Culled from his 1927 essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature”, Lovecraft acknowledges those authors and stories that he feels are the very finest the horror field has to offer, including Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Guy de Maupassant, Ambrose Bierce, and Arthur Conan Doyle. This chilling collection includes 20 works, each prefaced by Lovecraft's own opinions and insights in each author’s work.
-
-
Not all the stories are complete
- By SteffiT on 10-21-13
By: Henry James, and others
-
Tales of Terror
- By: Edgar Allan Poe
- Narrated by: Jack Foreman
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edgar Allan Poe, the master of terror, wrote some of literature's most entertaining and influential short stories, works that invented or anticipated modern detective novels, science fiction, and the horror genre. Tales of Terror collects nine of Poe's best-loved stories, all performed in chilling, highly dramatic readings by Jack Foreman. This collection includes such classics as "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Fall of the House of Usher", and what many consider his masterpiece, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."
-
-
Poe's Best Horror by an Outstanding Narrator
- By Gary on 08-29-04
By: Edgar Allan Poe
-
The Scarlet Pimpernel
- By: Baroness Orczy
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set during the Reign of Terror following the start of the French Revolution... The title character represents the original "hero with a secret identity" that inspired subsequent literary creations such as Don Diego de la Vega (El Zorro) and Bruce Wayne (the Batman). The popularity of the novel encouraged Orczy to write a number of sequels for her "reckless daredevil" over the next 35 years. The original play was performed to great acclaim in France, Italy, Germany, and Spain, while the novel was translated into 16 languages.
-
-
This version does not do the novel justice!
- By Wayne on 12-04-18
By: Baroness Orczy
-
Sacred Hunger
- By: Barry Unsworth
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 22 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this Booker Prize-winning work, Barry Unsworth follows the failing fortunes of William Kemp, a merchant pinning his last chance to a slave ship; his son, who needs a fortune because he is in love with an upper-class woman; and his nephew, who sails on the ship as its doctor because he has lost all he has loved. The voyage meets its demise when disease spreads among the slaves and the captain's drastic response provokes a mutiny.
-
-
Wise, Perceptive, Heart-breaking
- By S. Coldsmith on 04-16-16
By: Barry Unsworth
-
The Jewel of Seven Stars
- By: Bram Stoker
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The warning was inscribed on the entrance of the hidden tomb, forgotten for millennia in the sands of mystic Egypt. Then the archaeologists and grave robbers came in search of the fabled Jewel of Seven Stars, which they found clutched in the hand of the mummy. Few heeded the ancient warning, until all who came in contact with the Jewel began to die in a mysterious and violent way, with the marks of a strangler around their neck.
-
-
Mother of all Mummy-Stories
- By Dorothea on 03-15-08
By: Bram Stoker
-
The Sea Wolf
- By: Jack London
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wealthy ne'er-do-well Humphrey Van Weyden is a castaway who is put to work on the schooner Ghost, run by brutal Wolf Larsen. Toughened by life at sea, Humphrey develops the strength to protect another castaway, Maud Brewster, and stand up to the increasingly deranged Larsen. Experience the crashing, relentless power of the sea through this compelling story, made hauntingly immediate by author London's vivid prose.
-
-
Great entertainment
- By Ross on 05-31-03
By: Jack London
-
Shadow of the Moon
- By: M. M. Kaye
- Narrated by: Tara Ochs
- Length: 34 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The author of The Far Pavilions returns us once again to the vast, intoxicating romance of India under the British Raj. Shadow of the Moon is the story of Winter de Ballesteros, a beautiful English heiress come home to her beloved India. It is also the tale of Captain Alex Randall, her protector, who aches to possess her. Forged in the fires of a war that threatens to topple an empire, their tale is the saga of a desperate and unforgettable love that consumes all in its thrall.
-
-
Has always been a great story.
- By Sian on 06-08-14
By: M. M. Kaye
-
Dracula [Audible Edition]
- By: Bram Stoker
- Narrated by: Alan Cumming, Tim Curry, Simon Vance, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The modern audience hasn't had a chance to truly appreciate the unknowing dread that readers would have felt when reading Bram Stoker's original 1897 manuscript. Most modern productions employ campiness or sound effects to try to bring back that gothic tension, but we've tried something different. By returning to Stoker's original storytelling structure - a series of letters and journal entries voiced by Jonathan Harker, Dr. Van Helsing, and other characters - with an all-star cast of narrators, we've sought to recapture its originally intended horror and power.
-
-
IS THAT NOT SO?
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 11-05-15
By: Bram Stoker
-
The Four Feathers
- By: A. E. W. Mason
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just before his regiment sails off to war in the Sudan, British officer Harry Feversham quits the military. He is immediately given four white feathers as symbols of cowardice, one by each of his three best friends and one by his fiancée. To disprove this grave dishonor, Harry dons an Arabian disguise and leaves for the Sudan, where he anonymously comes to the aid of his three friends, saving each of their lives. Having proven his bravery, Harry returns to England, hoping to regain the love and respect of his fiancée.
-
-
Deep Realistic Story Masterfully Read
- By Kappavpi on 07-05-04
By: A. E. W. Mason
-
A Hero of Our Time
- By: Mikhail Lermontov
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Grigori Aleksandrovich Pechorin is an enigma: arrogant, cocky, melancholic, brave, cynic, romantic, loner, socialite, soldier, free soul, and yet, victim of the world, he eludes definition and remains a mystery to those who know him. Just who is he? And what does he hope to achieve? Evolving from first person to third person, and then into a diary, A Hero of Our Time takes on a variety of forms to interrogate Pechorin's cryptic character and his unusual philosophy, providing breathtaking descriptions of the Caucasus along the way.
-
-
Sarcastic Title
- By SmartShopper on 04-23-24
-
Two Horror Classics: Frankenstein and Dracula
- By: Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 28 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Frankenstein, a classic tale of bio-engineering gone horribly wrong, Victor Frankenstein uses body parts of the dead to bring a creature to life. When Frankenstein abandons his experiment in horror, the Monster embarks on a quest that results in the ultimate revenge. In Dracula, a timeless gothic vampire romance, young solicitor Jonathan Harker must shield his fiancé, Mina, from the predations of the insatiable Count Dracula. Mysteriously drawn to the Count, Mina, however, struggles to break free from the psychic grip of the mysterious dark stranger from Transylvania.
-
-
Wonderful rendition of two Gothic Horror classics!
- By Teela'Na on 10-03-19
By: Mary Shelley, and others
-
The Most Dangerous Game
- By: Richard Connell
- Narrated by: B.J. Harrison
- Length: 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A mysterious island, shrouded in fear, evil, and darkness. Here the amoral General Zaroff hunts. And what, you ask, is the most dangerous game? It is the manner and substance of his nightly killings.
-
-
A TRUE COSMOPOLITE
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 08-02-16
By: Richard Connell
-
The Narrow Corner
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: David Thorpe
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On his way home from a remote Pacific island, Dr Saunders travels with two strangers: the treacherous Captain Nichols, and Fred, a handsome Australian with a shadowy past. Driven to shelter from a storm on the island of Banda, the trio meets good-natured Erik Christessen and his fiancée, the cool and beautiful Louise. A tense, exotic tale of love, jealousy, murder and suicide, which evolved from a passage in Maugham's earlier masterpiece, The Moon and Sixpence.
-
-
Stunningly Great
- By SouthwestDude on 09-08-19
-
Edgar Allan Poe - The Complete Short Stories
- By: Edgar Allan Poe
- Narrated by: Bob Thomley
- Length: 16 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All of Edgar Allan Poe’s great short stories in one 16-hour collection.
-
-
NEVERMORE
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 11-23-15
By: Edgar Allan Poe
-
The Best Ghost Stories Ever Told
- Best Stories Ever Told
- By: Stephen Brennan - editor
- Narrated by: J. M. Badger, Imelda Pot
- Length: 24 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A big, brilliant, spooky collection of classic and contemporary ghost stories that will make you hesitate before turning off that light.
-
-
A very mixed review
- By Michael Mayer on 08-05-15
-
Treasure Island
- By: Robert Louis Stevenson
- Narrated by: Hans Conried
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The complete unabridged version of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of "pirates and buried gold".
-
-
Treasure Island read by Disney's Captain Hook!
- By Zachary Kaplan on 01-31-20
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Heart of Darkness (Unabridged)
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 4 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Long hailed as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, Joseph Conrad's tale of one man's descent into the mysterious and deadly Congo jungle to find a messianic ivory trader is a journey into the depths of man's own greed and quest for power. Marlow, our narrator, relates his story of his slow upriver quest to meet the strange and enigmatic Kurtz, who lives isolated in the jungle and is revered by the natives he exploits.
-
-
Great Narrator!
- By BOA on 09-25-20
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Heart of Darkness
- Penguin English Library
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: David Threlfall
- Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Penguin Classics presents Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, adapted for listening and available as a digital audiobook as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by David Threlfall, the star of the hit Channel 4 series, Shameless. The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, rage - who can tell? But truth - truth stripped of its cloak of time.
-
-
Excellent voice acting but book is abridged version
- By Carolyn P. on 10-01-23
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Lord Jim
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From his many years on the high seas as a mariner, mate, and captain, Joseph Conrad created unique works, including Heart of Darkness, that have left an indelible mark on world literature. First published in 1899, his haunting novel Lord Jim is both a riveting sea adventure and a fascinating portrait of a unique outcast from civilization.
-
-
The exact description of the form of a cloud
- By Dan Harlow on 11-17-13
By: Joseph Conrad
-
The Mirror of the Sea
- Memories & Impressions
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1906, The Mirror of the Sea was the first of Joseph Conrad’s two autobiographical memoirs. Discussing it, he called the book “a very intimate revelation...I have attempted here to lay bare with the unreserve of a last hour’s confession the terms of my relation with the sea, which beginning mysteriously, like any great passion the inscrutable Gods send to mortals, went on unreasoning and invincible, surviving the test of disillusion, defying the disenchantment that lurks in every day of a strenuous life"....
-
-
Stefan Rudniki
- By DAChurches on 06-10-23
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Typhoon
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Roger Allam
- Length: 3 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Typhoon is the story of a steamship and her crew beset by a tempest and of the captain whose dogged courage is tested to the limit. Captain MacWhirr was an ordinary man. However, when his steamer Nan-Shan blunders into a hurricane, he and his crew must pull together to survive. The steadfast courage of an undemonstrative captain and the imaginative readiness of his young first mate becomes a partnership vital to human survival as they are challenged from without by the elements, and from within by human doubts and fears.
-
-
A great classic, very well narrated
- By Dennis on 11-19-12
By: Joseph Conrad
-
The Nigger of the Narcissus
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Harry Shaw
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1897, The Nigger of the Narcissus is the story of a black West Indian, James Wait, who signs aboard the Narcissus, a merchant sailing ship on a journey from Bombay to London. Wait almost immediately becomes ill and bedridden for the remainder of the journey, splitting the crew into factions. It has long been considered one of Joseph Conrad's best and most important works.
-
-
AKA Children of the Sea
- By Darwin8u on 01-08-20
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Heart of Darkness (Unabridged)
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 4 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Long hailed as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, Joseph Conrad's tale of one man's descent into the mysterious and deadly Congo jungle to find a messianic ivory trader is a journey into the depths of man's own greed and quest for power. Marlow, our narrator, relates his story of his slow upriver quest to meet the strange and enigmatic Kurtz, who lives isolated in the jungle and is revered by the natives he exploits.
-
-
Great Narrator!
- By BOA on 09-25-20
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Heart of Darkness
- Penguin English Library
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: David Threlfall
- Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Penguin Classics presents Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, adapted for listening and available as a digital audiobook as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by David Threlfall, the star of the hit Channel 4 series, Shameless. The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, rage - who can tell? But truth - truth stripped of its cloak of time.
-
-
Excellent voice acting but book is abridged version
- By Carolyn P. on 10-01-23
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Lord Jim
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From his many years on the high seas as a mariner, mate, and captain, Joseph Conrad created unique works, including Heart of Darkness, that have left an indelible mark on world literature. First published in 1899, his haunting novel Lord Jim is both a riveting sea adventure and a fascinating portrait of a unique outcast from civilization.
-
-
The exact description of the form of a cloud
- By Dan Harlow on 11-17-13
By: Joseph Conrad
-
The Mirror of the Sea
- Memories & Impressions
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1906, The Mirror of the Sea was the first of Joseph Conrad’s two autobiographical memoirs. Discussing it, he called the book “a very intimate revelation...I have attempted here to lay bare with the unreserve of a last hour’s confession the terms of my relation with the sea, which beginning mysteriously, like any great passion the inscrutable Gods send to mortals, went on unreasoning and invincible, surviving the test of disillusion, defying the disenchantment that lurks in every day of a strenuous life"....
-
-
Stefan Rudniki
- By DAChurches on 06-10-23
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Typhoon
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Roger Allam
- Length: 3 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Typhoon is the story of a steamship and her crew beset by a tempest and of the captain whose dogged courage is tested to the limit. Captain MacWhirr was an ordinary man. However, when his steamer Nan-Shan blunders into a hurricane, he and his crew must pull together to survive. The steadfast courage of an undemonstrative captain and the imaginative readiness of his young first mate becomes a partnership vital to human survival as they are challenged from without by the elements, and from within by human doubts and fears.
-
-
A great classic, very well narrated
- By Dennis on 11-19-12
By: Joseph Conrad
-
The Nigger of the Narcissus
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Harry Shaw
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1897, The Nigger of the Narcissus is the story of a black West Indian, James Wait, who signs aboard the Narcissus, a merchant sailing ship on a journey from Bombay to London. Wait almost immediately becomes ill and bedridden for the remainder of the journey, splitting the crew into factions. It has long been considered one of Joseph Conrad's best and most important works.
-
-
AKA Children of the Sea
- By Darwin8u on 01-08-20
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Heart of Darkness
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joseph Conrad's searing tale of one of the strangest and most memorable journeys ever taken. Quite simply the scariest book ever written, this is a searing tale of one of the strangest and most memorable journeys ever undertaken - to the heart of a geographical and psychological wilderness from which no-one returns unscarred. For this isn't simply a journey up an uncharted river into a geographical wilderness; rather, it's a trip deep into our collective subconscious.
-
-
Best Narrator
- By Imago1 on 02-17-15
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Victory
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of the greatest modern writers in world literature comes a magnificent story of love, adventure, and rescue played out against the shimmering South Seas. Alone on a tropical island, a Swedish baron and a beautiful violinist discover the long-lost joys of love. But when two treasure hunters arrive on the beach, the lovers know that evil has invaded their romantic paradise—an evil they are powerless to stop.
-
-
Beautiful, sad and powerful
- By Darwin8u on 01-20-13
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Heart of Darkness
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Michael M. Thompson
- Length: 4 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The place is the Belgian Congo, "darkest Africa" of the late 19th century. The narrator, Marlow, describes his experiences running a river steamer for the Company and the cruel colonial exploitation that was practiced. Marlow goes into the jungle in search of the mysterious and powerful white trader Kurtz, hoping to find answers and explanations in that shadowy figure's character for the evil surrounding him.
-
-
What the?
- By Rodger on 09-03-10
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Lord Jim
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lord Jim tells the story of a young, idealistic Englishman---"as unflinching as a hero in a book"---who is disgraced by a single act of cowardice while serving as an officer on the Patna, a merchant-ship sailing from an eastern port. His life is ruined: an isolated scandal has assumed horrifying proportions. But then he is befriended by an older man named Marlow....
-
-
John Lee: A voice like no other...
- By Don Abrán on 05-01-14
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Heart of Darkness
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed as one of the great, albeit disturbing, visionary works of Western civilization, Conrad's haunting tale dramatizes the stark realities of Africa in the colonial period. Heart of Darkness reflects the physical and psychological tragedies Conrad experienced while working in the Belgian Congo in 1890 and is the basis of Francis Ford Coppola's film Apocalypse Now.
-
-
Classic Book Ruined by Scott Brick
- By L. on 12-15-10
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Heart of Darkness
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Joshua Szatmari
- Length: 3 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heart of Darkness' is a small, but perhaps the most famous adventure story written by Joseph Conrad. The narrative is written on behalf of the sailor Marlowe, who tells the reader about his past adventures. In the African wilds, there is an illegally operating elephant bone mining company. While crossing the continent, Marlowe travels to one of its divisions. As he is getting closer to his destination, the main character hears more and more stories about some almighty Kurtz, an agent of the company, whom the locals mention with fear and hatred.
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Lord Jim (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Chris MacDonnell
- Length: 15 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Jim, a young merchant seaman, joins a ship carrying Muslims to Mecca, he's flush with heroic daydreams. But after only a few days aboard, the Patna hits something in the night and begins to take on water. In a crucial moment that tests his courage, Jim cowers and abandons ship rather than risk his life to save the pilgrims. Tried for shameful dereliction of duty, the guilt-ridden Englishman sets forth to make amends for his past in the remote territory of Patusan.
-
-
Brilliant Storytelling
- By Eric on 10-12-23
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Frankenstein
- By: Mary Shelley
- Narrated by: Kenneth Branagh
- Length: 3 hrs and 1 min
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the greatest horror stories ever written, Frankenstein comes to spellbinding life once again in this tour-de-force performance by the acclaimed director and star of Henry V, Dead Again, and Much Ado About Nothing. The definitive recording of one of the most haunting tales of all time, Kenneth Branagh's performance of Frankenstein is a true audio classic.
-
-
Chapter alignment is wrong
- By Katmandu on 01-16-19
By: Mary Shelley
-
The Secret Agent
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: David Threlfall
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Exclusively from Audible. The Secret Agent is based on an actual attempt made in 1894 to blow up the Greenwich Observatory. A labyrinth of greed, corruption, and betrayal, it is the most darkly humorous of all Conrad's tales. It follows a European secret agent, Adolf Verloc, 'a London shop owner' with anarchist leanings who becomes reluctantly involved in a plot to blow up the Greenwich Observatory. Full of great characters, melodramatic irony and psychological intrigue the tale is far from simple....
-
-
Languid & loquacious language
- By Edward Ogden on 11-23-10
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Heart of Darkness
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Alan Munro
- Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Although Heart of Darkness was one of the first literary texts to provide a critical view of European imperial activities, it was initially read by critics as anything but controversial. While the book was generally admired, it was typically seen either as a condemnation of a certain type of adventurer who could easily take advantage of imperialism’s opportunities, or else as a sentimental novel reinforcing domestic values: Kurtz’s Intended, who appears at the novella’s conclusion, was roundly praised by turn-of-the-century reviewers for her maturity and sentimental appeal. A classic.
-
-
I CANNOT LISTEN TO THIS NARRATOR!
- By bracken on 02-23-14
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Heart of Darkness
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Peter Walters
- Length: 4 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, was originally a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899. It is a story within a story, following a character named Charlie Marlow, who recounts his adventure to a group of men onboard an anchored ship. The story told is of his early life as a ferry boat captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downriver, Charlie develops an interest in investing an ivory procurement agent, Kurtz, who is employed by the government.
By: Joseph Conrad
-
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- By: James Joyce
- Narrated by: Colin Farrell
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This quintessential coming-of-age novel describes the early life of Stephen Dedalus. It is set in Ireland during the 19th century, which was a time of emerging Irish nationalism and conservative Catholicism. Highly autobiographical in nature, the work is also notable for its being the first one in which Joyce uses innovative “stream of consciousness” writing style. A Portrait... follows Stephen Dedalus from his babyhood into early adulthood.
-
-
Bitterly disappointed
- By James on 01-29-19
By: James Joyce
What listeners say about Heart of Darkness: A Signature Performance by Kenneth Branagh
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Karl Pena
- 05-02-22
meh
meh. I enjoyed KB narration more than story. I suppose Im jaded by all the current works that lift from this work.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Shane Sager
- 07-06-22
WOW!!
Absolutely incredible. Branagh brings this story to life with vivid visuals, truly unsettling voice acting, and wonderful pronunciation.
Can’t wait to read this one again!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- austin
- 09-20-22
wow
this book was incredible. my interpretation is that this book is about finding your own meaning of life at the edge of insanity. this book is more about exploring your mind than exploring a jungle
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kathryn S. Daugherty
- 12-01-11
Beautiful language, beautifully read
The story can be disturbing because of widespread ignorance and prejudice but the author seems to be aware of it. That makes the difficult parts interesting.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lynn Montague
- 07-27-16
Narration
Would you consider the audio edition of Heart of Darkness: A Signature Performance by Kenneth Branagh to be better than the print version?
I have already marked narration with 5 starts, but I still have to add that it was fabulous.
Nevertheless, I felt it a bit of a challenge to stay mentally focused. This was my first audio book, so maybe I'll get use to it. Anyway, I bought the kindle version too and read at the same time (most of the time). That was an interesting experience. I'm going to try it again.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Brad
- 08-13-16
It doesn't get any better.
loved it. Complements the read spectacularly. Branagh nails it. I highly recommend. Easy to finish.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Pinklotuspolo
- 10-28-22
i didn’t get it?
you can’t censor history. clumsy. why are all the audible narrows british. it’s gotten old
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Alex
- 01-24-23
Well read, interesting read
As a 3 hour listen I would definitely recommend. Were it longer I may hesitate
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lauren Loebsack
- 09-02-22
Chilling, beautiful.
Branagh's reading held me captive. The story is greatly served in this rendition. The horror...the horror.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Asterix
- 09-06-22
A Classic, Masterfully Performed
Heart of Darkness is obviously one of the great classics of modern literature, so packed with subtlety and depth that multiple readings of the book itself and volumes of study aids might not be enough to fully consume all that it offers the reader. Still, a single careful reading provides a compelling view of the tragedy of colonial Africa. Having studied it in college, I was interested in reading it again with the benefit of age. It would do this edition a disservice to say it was read by Kenneth Branagh. The description says it is “performed by” Branagh, and it truly is a virtuoso performance, very much the equal of his best screen performances. He brings Charles Marlow to life as convincingly as he did King Henry V, Hamlet, Wallander or Poirot. This is a captivating listen!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!