Vaninka
Celebrated Crimes, Book 17
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Narrated by:
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Robert Bethune
-
By:
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Alexandre Dumas
About this listen
To paraphrase the note from the translator, The Celebrated Crimes of Alexandre Dumas père was not written for children. The novelist has spared no language - has minced no words - to describe violent scenes of violent times.
In this, the 17th of the series, Dumas, in this case more a novelist than a historian, turns his attention to a story from Russia: that of Vaninka. Her father was a Russian count and a general in the Russian Imperial Army under Paul I. She falls in love with one of her father's officers, whose tragic but accidental death leads her to a savage crime. Ironically, bringing her to justice requires a great perversion of justice itself.
This story is historical romance, not history. It does show us something of the life of Russia at the time and takes a side trip through part of the Napoleonic wars, but the focus is firmly on the price a beautiful, young girl pays for her arrogant willingness to play for keeps with human hearts.
Dumas may have collaborated on this, as he frequently did in his works, with other writers. Nevertheless, it is clearly Dumas who has the final say on this work, as with all the other works in this series. Enjoy!
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Story
From the publishers that brought you A Game of Thrones comes the series that inspired George R.R. Martin’s epic work. France became a great nation under Philip the Fair - but it was a greatness achieved at the expense of her people, for his was a reign characterised by violence, the scandalous adulteries of his daughters-in-law, and the triumph of royal authority.
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Historical Goodie
- By Syd Young on 08-03-13
By: Maurice Druon
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The Story of My Life, Volume 1
- By: Giacomo Casanova
- Narrated by: Peter Wickham
- Length: 47 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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The Story of My Life is the explosive and exhilarating autobiography by the infamous libertine Giacomo Casanova. Intense and scandalous, Casanova's extraordinary adventures take the listener on an incredible voyage across 18th-century Europe - from France to Russia, Poland to Spain and Turkey to Germany, with Venice at their heart. He falls madly in love, has wild flings and delirious orgies, and encounters some of the most brilliant figures of his time, including Catherine the Great, Louis XV and Benjamin Franklin. He holds a verbal dual with Voltaire and finds himself hauled before the court multiple times.
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Extraordinarily interesting
- By Ed Pegg Jr on 10-19-19
By: Giacomo Casanova
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Les Miserables
- By: Victor Hugo
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 57 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in the Parisian underworld and plotted like a detective story, Les Miserables follows Jean Valjean, originally an honest peasant, who has been imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving family. A hardened criminal upon his release, he eventually reforms, becoming a successful industrialist and town mayor. Despite this, he is haunted by an impulsive former crime and is pursued relentlessly by the police inspector Javert.
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one happy insomniac
- By Kathryn on 01-27-05
By: Victor Hugo
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Les Miserables
- By: Victor Hugo
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Abridged
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Les Misérables emphasizes the three major predicaments of the 19th century, each symbolized by a major character: Jean Valjean represents the degradation of man in the proletariat, Fantine represents the subjection of women through hunger, and Cosette represents the atrophy of the child by darkness.
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TOO Abridged, Read Only if You Won't Read More
- By Syd Young on 02-03-14
By: Victor Hugo
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The Betrothed
- By: Alessandro Manzoni
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 24 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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After the jealous tyrant Don Rodrigo foils their wedding, young Lombardian peasants Lucia and Lorenzo must separate and flee for their safety. Their difficult path to matrimony takes place against the turbulent backdrop of the Thirty Years War, where lawlessness and exploitation are at their height. Lucia takes refuge in a convent, where she is later abducted and taken on a nightmarish journey to a sinister castle, while Lorenzo goes to Milan, where he witnesses famine, riots, and plague - all evoked through meticulous description and with stunning immediacy.
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Fantastic reading of a great work of literature
- By Pia Crosby on 03-25-19
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Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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Joan of Arc's life and her accomplishments, as seen through the eyes of her childhood friend, are described with irony and brilliant insight into human nature. This was Twain's last book and he considered it to be his best.
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Really excellent!
- By Susan on 11-12-16
By: Mark Twain
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The Scarlet Pimpernel
- By: Baroness Orczy
- Narrated by: Walter Zimmerman
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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A blood-red flower is his calling card, daring rescues are his mission. The Scarlet Pimpernel is a daring English aristocrat who rescues French nobles from death at the hands of Madame Guillotine, patron saint of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. This popular romantic adventure is filled with skin-of-the-teeth escapes and spine-tingling intrigue. It is presented here in unabridged form so you won't miss a moment of swashbuckling suspense.
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It's up to the Narrator
- By Ashley on 11-04-10
By: Baroness Orczy
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The Red and the Black
- By: Stendhal
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 20 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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So what would Al Gore choose if he had a book club? Gore named Stendhal's The Red and the Black, a 19th century classic chock full of adultery, betrayal, and moral vacuity, as his favorite book on a recent broadcast of Oprah. It's a bit shocking of a choice, given his wife and running mate's position on clean, wholesome literature. Listen and decide for yourself the merit of this presidential pick.
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Almost perfect
- By Erez on 05-29-08
By: Stendhal
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Zama
- By: Antonio Di Benedetto, Esther Allen - preface translation
- Narrated by: Armando Durán
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Written in a style that is both precise and sumptuous, weirdly archaic and powerfully novel, Zama takes place in the last decade of the 18th century and describes the solitary, suspended existence of Don Diego de Zama, a highly placed servant of the Spanish crown who has been posted to Asunción, the capital of remote Paraguay. There, eaten up by pride, lust, petty grudges, and paranoid fantasies, he does as little as he possibly can while plotting his eventual transfer to Buenos Aires.
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Lost Master Work of The New World
- By tomasito on 02-28-17
By: Antonio Di Benedetto, and others
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The Betrothed
- A Novel
- By: Alessandro Manzoni, Michael F. Moore - translator, Jhumpa Lahiri - afterword
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos, Susan Vinciotti Bonito
- Length: 22 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The Betrothed is a cornerstone of Italian culture, language, and literature. Published in its final form in 1842, The Betrothed has inspired generations of Italian readers and writers. Giuseppe Verdi composed his majestic Requiem Mass in honor of Manzoni. Italo Calvino called the novel “a classic that has never ceased shaping reality in Italy” while Umberto Eco praised its author as a “most subtle critic and analyst of languages.”
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How to ruin a masterpiece
- By McMurrab on 10-31-22
By: Alessandro Manzoni, and others
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A Hero of Our Time
- By: Mikhail Lermontov
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In A Hero of Our Time, Grigory Pechorin is a bored, self-centered, and cynical young army officer who believes in nothing. With impunity he toys with the love of women and the goodwill of men. He is brave, determined, and willful, but his wasted energy and potential ultimately result in tragedy.
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Genius Presentation of Ywtsaxt fas
- By Brad Isaak on 11-06-16
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The Dark Angel
- By: Mika Waltari
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Ancient Constantinople, the glorious capital of the Eastern Roman Empire for over 1,000 years, and the jewel of Christendom, is the setting for this incredible historical novel. No other city in the world could compare with it in grandeur, splendor, and wealth. And when it fell to the Turks in 1453, it must have seemed like the end of the world to Christians. Famed author Mika Waltari takes us into the last months of this dying city as revealed in the diary of John Angelos, a strange man hopelessly in love with the daughter of an eminent Byzantine official.
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Great until the end
- By Barton on 07-12-19
By: Mika Waltari