Literary Fiction
Clayhanger
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
Arnold Bennett
This first of a trilogy of novels is a coming-of-age story set in the Midlands of Victorian England, following Edwin Clayhanger as he leaves…
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Read by Bruce Pirie
Honoré de Balzac
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life is one of the last great works completed by Balzac for his huge novel series entitled The Human Comedy. Sect…
Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages
Read by Gina Belmonde
Various
A delightful collection of short stories by some of the luminary authors of the Victorian era. These stories explore the truth behind the V…
Christmas Stories
Read by David Wales
Charles Dickens
Twenty stories originally published in the Christmas editions of the magazines “Household Words” and “All The Year Round”. Some of the stori…
The Bride of Lammermoor
Read by Gillian Hendrie
Sir Walter Scott
An historical novel by Sir Walter Scott, part of the Tales of My Landlord series, published anonymously in 1819. Based on a true story, it i…
The Princess Casamassima
Read by Nicholas Clifford (1930-2019)
Henry James
Princess Casamassima can be read on several levels: first, as a political and social novel, exploring the anarchistic and revolutionary unde…
Three Years
Read by Expatriate
Anton Chekhov
Laptev, the rich but unattractive scion of a merchant, renounces his independent-minded, intelligent, devoted, but equally unattractive mist…
Lost Illusions
Read by Bruce Pirie
Honoré de Balzac
Ève and David (1843) is the final book in Balzac’s Lost Illusions trilogy, which is part of his sweeping set of novels collectively t…
The Absentee
Read by Bruce Pirie
Maria Edgeworth
Published in 1812, “The Absentee” by Maria Edgeworth examines social injustice in 19th-century Britain. At that time, the management of man…
The Island of Doctor Moreau
Read by Tom Haire
H. G. Wells
In 1896 HG Wells produced the Island of Doctor Moreau. After a fateful shipwreck, a chance rescue, and offer of safe harbor, Edward Prendick…
The House of Mirth
Read by Jan Moorehouse
Edith Wharton
The House of Mirth tells the story of Lily Bart, a woman who is torn between her desire for luxurious living and a relationship based on mut…
A Hazard of New Fortunes
Read by Nicholas Clifford (1930-2019)
William Dean Howells
Howell’s novel is set in New York of the late nineteenth century, a city familiar to readers of Edith Wharton and Henry James. Basil March, …
Germinal
Read by VfkaBT
Émile Zola
This epic about French coal miners and the burgeoning labor movement is considered one of Zola's finest novels. - Summary by Matt Pierard
David Copperfield
Read by Michael Armenta
Charles Dickens
"This short collection of 6 selected scenes from "David Copperfield" were abridged and performed by Dickens himself during hi…
Liza of Lambeth
Read by Hatton43
W. Somerset Maugham
Liza of Lambeth focuses on the challenges of life facing Liza, an 18 year old factory girl who lives in the poverty of the slums of 1890s Lo…
Death in Venice
Read by Lee Smalley
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann, author of Death in Venice (German: Der Tod in Venedig) was a winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. The main character in th…
The Girl From Hollywood
Read by Joseph DeNoia
Edgar Rice Burroughs
The countryside outside of Los Angeles is a paradise on Earth: nature gives bounty on the land, the animals are majestic, the oaks breathe a…
The Romantic
Read by Expatriate
May Sinclair
As a simple story told, "The Romantic" is one of Sinclair’s tightest and most compelling. Charlotte Redhead, a young British secre…
Buddenbrooks
Read by Bruce Pirie
Thomas Mann
When Thomas Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (1929), the citation made special mention of his first novel, “Buddenbrooks,” pub…
In Vino Veritas
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
Soren Kierkegaard
In Vino Veritas is one section of Kierkegaard's Stages on Life's Way, originally published in 1845. In a conscious reference to Plato's Symp…