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Shirley
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 25 hrs and 58 mins
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Editor Was Needed
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Publisher's summary
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Beautiful
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Dombey and Son
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Okay
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Having lost the family savings on risky investments, Richard Grey removes himself from family life and suffers a bout of depression. Feeling helpless and frustrated, his youngest daughter, Agnes, applies for a job as a governess to the children of a wealthy, upper-class, English family. Ecstatic at the thought that she has finally gained control and freedom over her own life, Agnes arrives at the Bloomfield mansion armed with confidence and purpose.
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Written when women---and workers generally---had few rights in England, Agnes Grey exposes the brutal inequities of the rigid class system in mid-19th-century Britain. Agnes comes from a respectable middle-class family, but their financial reverses have forced her to seek work as a governess.
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Narrator creates the listen
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The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton, through vignettes of his life, portrays a character who is hard to like and easy to ridicule. Many people do ridicule as well as slander and despise him, until his suffering shocks them into fellowship and sympathy.
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Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol: A Radio Dramatization
- By: Charles Dickens, Jerry Robbins - dramatization
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- Original Recording
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Colonial Radio Theatre pulls out all the stops in this magnificent production of the Charles Dickens classic Christmas story! This full cast dramatization features a powerful music score - from the magnificent, booming opening of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" to the frightening tones of "The Ghost of Christmas Future". It's a holiday treat both you and your family will enjoy for years to come.
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great performance
- By Paul Pedraza on 11-23-22
By: Charles Dickens, and others
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North and South
- By: Elizabeth Gaskell
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Written at the request of Charles Dickens, North and South is a book about rebellion that poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Gaskell expertly blends individual feeling with social concern and her heroine, Margaret Hale, is one of the most original creations of Victorian literature. When Margaret Hale's father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience she is forced to leave her comfortable home in the tranquil countryside of Hampshire....
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Delightful
- By Sally on 01-04-10
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Ruth
- By: Elizabeth Gaskell
- Narrated by: Eve Matheson
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The orphaned heroine Ruth, apprenticed to a dressmaker, is seduced by wealthy Henry Bellingham who is captivated by her simplicity and beauty. Their affair causes her to lose her home and job to which he offers her shelter, only to cruelly abandon her soon after. She is offered a chance of a new life though shamed in the eyes of society by her illegitimate son. When Henry reappears offering marriage she must choose between social acceptance and her own pride.
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Fallen Woman Finds Redemption
- By Susan on 12-06-12
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Little Women
- By: Louisa May Alcott
- Narrated by: Erin Bateman
- Length: 19 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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When published in 1868, the world fell in love with this semiautobiographical story of the March sisters, and to this day the classic story is beloved and frequently adapted for the stage and screen. Little Women tells the story of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March, sisters who love each other and work hard building their earnest lives in Massachusetts during the Civil War.
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Little Women
- By Jill Westmoreland on 01-28-23
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First Love
- By: Ivan Turgenev
- Narrated by: David Troughton
- Length: 2 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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At the end of a dinner party, the remaining guests drink wine and tell stories of their first love. For one of them, it will be a dark journey into his past, reawakening unbearable memories of his obsession with the beautiful Zinaida.
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Turgenev's Famous Novel...
- By Douglas on 01-16-14
By: Ivan Turgenev
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On the Origin of Species
- By: Charles Darwin
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Abridged
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Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and a life-long committed Darwinist, abridges and reads this special audio version of Charles Darwin's famous book. A literally world-changing book, Darwin put forward the anti-religious and scientific idea that humans in fact evolved over millions of generations from animals, starting with fish, all the way up through the ranks to apes, then to our current form.
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A Perfect Abridgement
- By M on 05-28-09
By: Charles Darwin
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Tess of the D'urbervilles
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Jennifer Dixon
- Length: 17 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Tess of the d'Urbervilles is the 19th century novel lately thought to be one of the inspirations of E .L.James' Fifty Shades of Grey. It depicts the life of an impressionable, naive, somewhat educated young woman who yearns to be free to live her own life, but finds herself constricted by the bonds of the sexual, religious and socially hypocritical customs that have surrounded her from birth.
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Jenny Dixon
- By Amazon Customer on 08-09-15
By: Thomas Hardy
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A good story ruined by the narrator
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Perfect!!
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Struggling manufacturer Robert Moore has introduced labour saving machinery to his Yorkshire mill, arousing a ferment of unemployment and discontent among his workers. Robert considers marriage to the wealthy and independent Shirley Keeldar to solve his financial woes, yet his heart lies with his cousin Caroline, who, bored and desperate, lives as a dependent in her uncle’s home with no prospect of a career. Shirley, meanwhile, is in love with Robert’s brother, an impoverished tutor - a match opposed by her family.
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definitely worth getting the full version
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By: Charlotte Brontë
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The Brontë Sisters Collection
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Few families in history can boast of the incredible literary achievements of the Brontë sisters - Anne, Emily and Charlotte - who penned three of the most beloved novels ever written: Anne's "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," Emily's "Wuthering Heights" and Charlotte's "Jane Eyre." Collected here are all three of these classic novels, plus a pair of essays penned by Charlotte fiercely defending her sister's books and drawing attention to the literary misogyny of the time, which forced the sisters to publish their novels under male pseudonyms.
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The Classics
- By ToujoursMoi on 07-15-24
By: Charlotte Brontë, and others
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Wuthering Heights
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The unapologetic intensity with which Emily Brontë wrote this story ensures that it will forever be considered one of the greatest works of English literature. A passionate tale of a chaotic and often violent love, Wuthering Heights transcends your average romance and, with its Gothic undertones, takes the listener on a journey through one man's lustful hunt for revenge.
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Almost Peerless
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By: Emily Brontë, and others
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When Helen Graham shut her bedroom door on her abusive, drunken husband, it was a door-slam heard around the world. Escaping to Wildfell Hall after a loveless marriage, Helen, our mysterious tenant, lives in quiet seclusion, while her reclusive nature quickly becomes the subject of local gossip.
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Beautiful
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By: Anne Brontë
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Agnes Grey
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In her daring first novel, the youngest Brontë sister drew upon her own experiences to tell the unvarnished truth about life as a governess. Like Agnes Grey, Anne Bronte was a young middle-class Victorian lady whose family fortunes had faltered. Like so many other unmarried women of the 19th century, Bronte accepted the only "respectable" employment available - and entered a world of hardship, humiliation, and loneliness.
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Unexpected love for this Novel
- By Rachel on 03-18-21
By: Anne Brontë
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Charlotte Brontë
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Charlotte Brontë's life contained all the drama and tragedy of the great Gothic novels it inspired. Like Jane Eyre, she was raised motherless on remote Yorkshire moors and sent away to a brutally strict boarding school at a young age. Charlotte grew up and watched helplessly as, one by one, her five beloved siblings sickened and died; by the end of her short life, she was the only child of the Brontë clan remaining.
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Clear-Eyed Bio of Literature's Most Elusive Figure
- By wally on 09-02-16
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Bleak House
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First published in monthly parts from March 1852 to September 1853, this novel follows the fortunes of three pedestrian characters; Esther Summerson, Ada Clare, and Richard Carstone. The story they tell embondies Dickens' merciless indictment of the Court of Chancery and its bungling, morally corrupt handling of the endless case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, giving the novel its scope and meaning.
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30 hours was too short for me
- By UU Ma on 01-08-03
By: Charles Dickens
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Jane Eyre
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- Unabridged
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The work tells the story of Jane's early life, her experience at Lowood School and as a governess. Her refusal to accept Rochester's love on any but her own strictly moral terms is a passionate cry for independence.
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Excellent, but second best...
- By R. David Mintz on 02-15-10
By: Charlotte Brontë
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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
- By: Anne Brontë
- Narrated by: Alex Jennings, Jenny Agutter
- Length: 16 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Fleeing a disastrous marriage, Helen Huntingdon retreats to the desolate mansion, Wildfell Hall, with her son, Arthur. There, she makes her living as a painter. Finding it difficult to avoid her neighbors, she is soon an object of speculation and gossip. Brontë portrays Helen's eloquent struggle for independence at a time when society defined a married woman as her husband's property.
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Excellent performances of an abridged version
- By LSK on 04-21-19
By: Anne Brontë
What listeners say about Shirley
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anne Patterson
- 03-06-24
-Excellent voice actor
Anna Brentinck's Voice acting was very easy to follow. Each character very extremely well developed and I thought I was there in the scene.
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- Ado About Nothing
- 02-15-22
I think I will read this book every year 📚👍
I never thought I would like another Brontë book as much as I loved Jane Eyre. How very wrong I was! Shirley is brilliant from start to finish!
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1 person found this helpful
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- charlotte
- 02-17-19
Excellent ! , just excellent !
This is an example of why good literature endures. Shirley is timeless. In this time of the “me too “ movement, mindset , it is good to be reminded of what is in the depths and heights of women and men’s hearts . Not to mention the author s intelligence ,beauty ,skill and ability to communicate her art
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kathleen L Barlow
- 05-04-19
more than delightful
Beautiful story set in a time history remembers dark and horrific. Here we see lives touched on the other side. People who also struggle in their own ways. I would give the narrator 10 stars.
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- Allyson
- 04-29-19
How a Virgin Writes a Romance
While I will admit that, nearing the end of this story nowhere else was as interesting to spend time, there were several times during which I rolled my eyes with the interminable philosophizing. Other times my eyes went a a-rolling due to the raptures given in journal form of what was purported to be a manly man. I know of no man who would have gone on to that extent. It was painfully obvious that this was written by someone whose romantic experiences were mainly limited to flights of fancy. Nevertheless, if your fancies are given to such flights , I suspect you would love this book. Bronte does have a gift for shining a fearless light on the foibles of man (and woman)kind and this produces some brilliant moments of humor. If you are a feminist, you would probably not pick up this book anyway, but if you do, you had better take a Valium or a good nap before consuming it!
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- Anonymous User
- 11-10-20
Good storyline, but too long
I really like the main characters in this book, and I liked the basic storyline and plot. When I first started listening, I almost gave up and exchanged it. The first 2-3 hours only featured men, politics, and trade. And there were so many men, it was very hard to distinguish who was who. The story got much better with the addition of Caroline. The book was very long. I would have liked more time spent on the main characters and how their relationships progressed and how their lives turned out. Too much description and focus on minor characters for my taste. And I don’t see why the book is named Shirley, because she wasn’t the sole main character. She wasn’t even introduced for several hours. Having said all that, I did really like the main characters, and the way the book addresses you as “dear reader” and invites you to listen in on a conversation or look over someone’s shoulder. But because it was so long and nothing very astounding happened, I probably wouldn’t recommend it.
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- Lynn
- 12-26-21
Amazing and Deeply Radical Book
This book is shocking in its exploration of female relationships. Charlotte Bronte did not set this book in her own time. For her, it would be what we call a "historical novel." She set it in Regency England - the Jane Austen era, which was also Napoleon's era, Charlotte Bronte depicts the class warfare, dangerous violence, and precarious economic situation of Britain as it quickly industrialized while fighting wars on the Continent and America. The financial and class disruptions and divides made life extremely difficult for non-wealthy everyday women and men. Women without wealth had very few prospects of economic independence, even of survival, and had no power at all. To maintain self respect and carve out some sort of life beyond subsistence took tremendous strength and self control. The two heroines of this book, Caroline and Shirley, both intelligent and imaginative, are of opposite temperaments and opposite economic circumstances. Yet they become passionate friends. The romantic attraction between the two is masked at first by Caroline's long standing love for the one man who, as the book unfolds, seems likely to marry Shirley. Shirley reminds me of Austen's Emma: wealthy, beautiful, self confident, and commanding. Shirley, unlike Emma, is not burdened with a hypochondriac father. Shirley has the luxury of forcusing her energies outward, insisting upon engaging with the wider world, and intent on claiming and exercising what worldly power outside her immediate family that she can. She speaks sometimes as a male would, role plays as a soldier/ captain, and plans adventures and journeys for herself and Caroline. Shirley flat out tells Caroline she loves her; Caroline tells Shirley that they share affection. How this is all resolved is somewhat unsatisfactory, as such complicated and ambiguous relationships frequently prove to be. The economic and social issues are also complicated, and perhaps more satisfactorily resolved in this book than in real life at the time. In all, Bronte's book is unique among those of her contemporaries. I found it fascinating in every way. And, as in her other books, Charlotte Bronte's writing has passages that flow straight into the heart with lyrical poetry.
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- pat harvey
- 08-08-20
Not my favorite CB novel.
I found it heard to follow at times. I enjoyed Jane Eyre and Villette much better.
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- A close reader
- 04-11-16
Bronte Heaven
Although it's not as spectacular as Jane Eyre and not as psychologically compelling as Villette, Shirley still gives you 20 some hours of Brontë heaven. Bronte is one of our greatest writers ever to have lived. She writes from and about the soul.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Abigail
- 07-29-17
Must read!
I've read Shirley 4 times now- each time picking up on new things and appreciating it a new light. This is the first time I've listened to it and I was not disappointed. I don't love the forced French accents- but I understand they served a purpose and they were well done. It just hadn't synched totally with what I had imagined reading the book outright. That being said- it's a fabulous book- less macabre and gothic than Jane Eyre (another of my favorites) and the book covers an often overlooked aspect of English history- the Luddite rebellion. I love this book so much- a must read for and Austen, Bronte, or Gaskell fan.
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