Showing results by author "Audiobooks by Librivox" in All Categories

The placid Provencal lives of Francois Mouret and his wife Marthe are irreparably impacted by the arrival of a suspicious cleric, Abbe Faujas. - Summary by Mark Leder

This, the fifth novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart Cycle, serves effectively as a sequel to "The Conquest of Plassans". Serge Mouret, the son of Francois and Marthe, is now a priest, in the little backwater of Artauds. After he suffers a breakdown, with subsequent amnesia, however, he enters into a romance with the childlike Albine, which leads to catastrophe. - Summary by Mark Leder

This final volume of detective stories was Doyle’s effort to put his most famous creation behind him at long last. It includes a variety of tales, from widely separated periods in the protagonist’s life, including his retirement, stories told from various points of view: Watson’s, Holmes’s, and an omniscient narrator’s. Most, of course, illustrate the detective’s famous “deduction,” but not all; some of his successes call upon resources of character which we rarely associate with him. He demonstrates compassion and empathy, and more than once he laughs. His attitude toward Dr. ...

And so, reader, farewell to Sherlock Holmes! These are positively the last stories. There is some disagreement as to their quality, and some claim that Conan Doyle was writing more experimentally, rather than to the conventional Sherlock Holmes formula. Not all the stories are narrated by the faithful Watson, and the stories are regarded as the darkest of the Holmes canon, with some unusual villains.Please note: Section 5, The Adventure of the Three Gables, includes language which, though normal for the time it was written, is now regarded as highly unacceptable racial slurs. Anyone who finds ...

After a number of deaths in his close family, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle turned to spiritualism in hope of finding proof of the afterlife. Being open in this way, he wanted to believe that spirits and other supernatural being including fairies were real. Because of this he believed the photographs of fairies taken by the Cottingley girls were proof of the existence of such beings. In this book he presents his stance on the issue. Eventually it was proven that the photographs were indeed a hoax. (Summary by Amy Gramour)

Dr. Watson chronicles here some of the more interesting detective cases that he and his good friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, have encountered during their association. We see the cases unfold as he does, scratch our heads as does he while the evidence is collected, and then marvel at the impeccable observations, remarkable insight, and doggedness which Holmes displays as he teases apart the tangled clues.Packaged as twelve distinct cases, by the end of this book your own senses of observation and deductive reasoning should be improved. It's easy to see why this book became a model for detective ...

Rencontre Watson et Holmes, installation, et première enquête à Londres, et aussi détour aux U.S.A. en Utah… à Salt Lake City, chez les Mormons. Amour, vengeance… et crimes… Roman original dans sa construction.- Résumé par Christiane Jehanne

The Castle stood above the quiet little town for as long as folks remembered: barren, deserted, lonely and frightening to the townsfolk. Until one day, smoke began to ascend from the dunjon. They were warned not to go near, and when intrepid souls dared to venture to uncover the mystery of the ruined castle, they learned firsthand what supernatural terrors await inside The Castle of the Carpathians. Summary by Joseph DeNoia.

Después de viajar por España, Francia, Italia, el norte de África y Brasil, Oliverio Giraldo escribió "20 poemas para ser leídos en el tranvía". Estructurado en torno al Diario de viaje. - Resumen por Lucas Oliveira

This volume, entitled "The great explorers of the 19th century", forms the third of three volumes under the general title of "Celebrated travels and travellers".Volume three comprehends:"The dawn of a century of discovery" (part I, chap. I), "The exploration and colonization of Africa" (part I, chap. II), "The oriental scientific movement and American discoveries" (part I, chap. III), "Voyages round the world, and Polar expeditions" (part II, chap. I), "French circumnavigators" (part II, chap. II), "Polar expeditions" (part II, chap. III, part I) and "The North Pole" (part II, chap. III, part ...

The famous writer of great adventure stories Jules Verne wrote also several lesser known, but good non-fiction works. "Celebrated travels and travellers" tells the story of geographical discovery in the same well written and precise manner we are used to finding in Verne’s fiction books. This book is divided into 3 volumes. This is the first volume, named the "Exploration of the World" and it covers the period in the World's history of exploration from B.C. 505 to the close of the 17th century. The second and third volumes are respectively entitled "The great navigators of the 18th century" ...

Am 29. Juni 1871 stach das Schiff » Polaris« von New York unter Kapitän Franz C. Hall in See zur Erforschung des Hochnordens. Der Dampfer nahm seinen Weg über Neufundland an der Westküste Grönlands entlang durch den Smith-Sund und überwinterte in einer Bucht dieser Küste, die Hall »Polaris-Bay« taufte. Dort wurde ein Observatorium errichtet, und von dort aus unternahm man Schlittenreisen nach Süden und Norden. Hall starb nach Rückkehr von einer solchen Fahrt am 8. November 1871. Im August 1872 mußte infolge Kohlenmangels und eines Lecks die Heimfahrt angetreten werden. Am 15. ...

This volume, entitled "The Great Navigators of the 18th century", forms the second of three volumes under the general title of "Celebrated Travels and Travellers". The first volume of the series, "Exploration of the World", covers a period in the world's history extending from B.C. 505, to the close of the 17th century, and the third volume gives an account of "The Great Explorers and Travellers of the 19th Century". - Summary from the Publishers' NoteBook coordinated by Kajo and Piotr Nater; Proof-listened by Kajo and Piotr Nater

Orgullo y prejuicio (en inglés, Pride and Prejudice), publicada por primera vez el 28 de enero de 1813 como una obra anónima, es la más famosa de las novelas de Jane Austen y una de las primeras comedias románticas en la historia de la novela. Su primera frase es, además, una de las más famosas en la literatura inglesa: «Es una verdad mundialmente reconocida que un hombre soltero, poseedor de una gran fortuna, necesita una esposa». Es una novela de desarrollo personal, en la que las dos figuras principales, Elizabeth Bennet y Fitzwilliam Darcy, cada uno a su manera y, no obstante, de ...

Pride and Prejudice is the most famous of Jane Austen’s novels, and its opening is one of the most famous lines in English literature - “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Its manuscript was first written between 1796 and 1797, and was initially called First Impressions, but was never published under that title. Following revisions it was published on 28 January 1813 by the same Mr. Egerton of the Military Library, Whitehall, who had brought out Sense and Sensibility. Like both its predecessor and ...

Orgullo y prejuicio (en inglés, Pride and Prejudice), publicada por primera vez el 28 de enero de 1813 como una obra anónima, es la más famosa de las novelas de Jane Austen y una de las primeras comedias románticas en la historia de la novela. Su primera frase es, además, una de las más famosas en la literatura inglesa: «Es una verdad mundialmente reconocida que un hombre soltero, poseedor de una gran fortuna, necesita una esposa». Es una novela de desarrollo personal, en la que las dos figuras principales, Elizabeth Bennet y Fitzwilliam Darcy, cada uno a su manera y, no obstante, de ...

Northanger Abbey is a hilarious parody of 18th century gothic novels. The heroine, 17-year old Catherine, has been reading far too many “horrid” gothic novels and would love to encounter some gothic-style terror — but the superficial world of Bath proves hazardous enough. (Summary by Kara)

Anne Elliott, Jane Austen's only aging heroine, has devoted her life to caring for her financially irresponsible family. Just when she is growing content with her uneventful lifestyle, a long-lost flame re-enters the picture -- now as the beau of her significantly younger cousin. Anne is now faced with a choice: will she watch Captain Wentworth settle into life with another woman, or will she strive to win back his love and escape her family? (Summary by Kirsten Ferreri)

More than eight years before the novel opens, Anne Elliot, then a lovely, thoughtful, warm-hearted 19 year old, accepted a proposal of marriage from the handsome young naval officer Frederick Wentworth. He was clever, confident, and ambitious, but poor and with no particular family connections to recommend him. Sir Walter, Anne's fatuous, snobbish father and her equally self-involved older sister Elizabeth were dissatisfied with her choice, maintaining that he was no match for an Elliot of Kellynch Hall, the family estate. Her older friend and mentor, Lady Russell, acting in place of Anne's ...

East Wind: West Wind, Buck's first novel (published in 1930), is set in early 20th century China. Kwei-lan, a young aristocratic maiden, narrates her emotional tale to her "sister", a friend familiar with both east and west. The book explores an ancient family culture where women have no rights, their feet are still being bound, marriages are arranged, husbands have multiple concubines, parents exert crushing control over their childrens' lives, girl babies are devalued and sometimes killed, and slaves abound. Alas, Kwei-lan's betrothed (made by arrangement before her birth and whom she has ...