Murder, mystery and majesty combine in this new Special Edition hardback of the Queen of Crime's very best short stories set in London. Agatha Christie is recognized throughout the world as the writer of remarkable country house mysteries and ingenious murders set in faraway countries. Yet many of her books and stories were set in the city she new best and for many years called home: London. From Poirot's flat in Whitehaven Mansions to Scotland Yard, the Old Bailey to Harley Street, Lyons Tea Rooms to the Savoy, Paddington Station to the London Underground, Agatha Christie knew and loved London, and mined it for its rich seam of storytelling opportunities. 100 years after the first publication of 'Traitor Hands', the short story that became 'Witness for the Prosecution', this collection includes this original thriller, along with eleven other London mysteries featuring all the Christie faithfuls: Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence, Harley Quin, Parker Pyne and Ariadne Oliver. Join Christie’s iconic characters on their adventures around London: The Affair at the Victory Ball The Tuesday Night Club The Case of the Discontented Soldier The Adventure of the Clapham Cook Traitor Hands A Fairy in the Flat The Kidnapped Prime Minister The Listerdale Mystery The Case of the Caretaker The Lonely God The Sign in the Sky The Adventure of the Cheap Flat

Capital Christie

Jane Austen’s most popular novel, originally published in 1813, some 17 years after it was first written, presents the Bennet family of Longbourn. Against the background of gossipy Mrs Bennet and the detached Mr Bennet, the quest is on for husbands for the five daughters. The spotlight falls on Elizabeth, second eldest, who is courted by Mr Darcy though initially she is more concerned with the fate of her other sisters. This marvellous account of family life in Regency England is read with customary panache by Juliet Stevenson.

Pride and Prejudice

These classic children’s tales are now available for the first time as a digital download, performed by Roger McGough and Juliet Stevenson. Five of Eric Carle’s picture book texts collected together, with music. The stories are: The Very Hungry Caterpillar Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me The Very Quiet Cricket The Mixed Up Chameleon I See a Song

The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Other Stories

Arrogant, self-willed and egotistical, Emma is Jane Austen’s most unusual heroine. Her interfering ways and inveterate matchmaking are at once shocking and comic. She is ‘handsome, clever and rich’ and has ‘a disposition to think too well of herself’. When she decides to introduce the humble Harriet Smith to the delights of genteel society and to find her a suitable husband, she precipitates herself and her immediate circle into a web of misunderstanding and intrigue, from which no-one emerges unchanged. Juliet Stevenson, an incomparable reader, is for many the voice of Jane Austen

Emma

Anne Elliot has grieved for seven years over the loss of her first and only love, Captain Frederick Wentworth. When their paths finally cross again, Anne finds herself slighted and all traces of their former intimacy gone. As the pair continue to share the same social circle, dramatic events in Lyme Regis, and later in Bath, conspire to unravel the knots of deceit and misunderstanding in this beguiling and gently comic story of love and fidelity. Juliet Stevenson reads this unabridged recording with her customary clarity and particular understanding for the words and world of Jane Austen.

Persuasion

"Just before the First World War, the Ramsay family go to their holiday home in the Hebrides, bringing several guests with them. While they are there, one of the children wants to visit a lighthouse. After a ten year gap, during which the war wreaks its havoc on Europe, one of the guests returns to the house; and another trip to the lighthouse is proposed. Told from multiple viewpoints, in language that is precise, delicate and allusive, To The Lighthouse gives unprecedented insight into the minds of the characters, as well as telling a broader story of personal and social change in the world after the war. To The Lighthouse is a landmark work of English fiction. Virginia Woolf explores perception and meaning in some of the most beautiful prose ever written, minutely detailing the characters thoughts and impressions."

To the Lighthouse

When timid, ten-year-old Fanny Price is plucked from her large, raucous and somewhat impoverished family in Portsmouth to live with wealthy relatives in Mansfield Park her life is changed for ever. Immediately forming a strong attraction for her cousin Edmund, she develops into a genteel and mature young woman, whose love for him remains undimmed despite the diversion brought into both their lives by the attractive but morally bankrupt Crawfords. With its suggestion of adultery, and written with all the wit and style of the mature Jane Austen, this is the work of a writer at the peak of her powers. It was published in 1814, and unlike its predecessors, Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility which were revisions of her juvenile writing, Mansfield Park was completely original. Like its heroine Fanny Price, who develops during the course of the story to reach maturity, Jane Austen’s third published novel was a much more mature work from a writer of increasing experience.

Mansfield Park

When Catherine Morland, a country clergyman’s daughter, is invited to spend a season in Bath with the fashionable high society, little does she imagine the delights and perils that await her. Captivated and disconcerted by what she finds, and introduced to the joys of ‘Gothic novels’ by her new friend, Isabella, Catherine longs for mystery and romance. When she is invited to stay with the beguiling Henry Tilney and his family at Northanger Abbey, she expects mystery and intrigue at every turn. However, the truth turns out to be even stranger than fiction…

Northanger Abbey

From the author of the Seven Sisters series, The Angel Tree is Lucinda Riley's compelling mystery of family secrets and forgotten pasts on the sweeping pastures of south-east Wales. Read by the award-winning actor Juliet Stevenson (Truly, Madly, Deeply) 'Sweeping, absorbing, beautifully written and utterly compelling' – Lancashire Evening Post Thirty years have passed since Greta left Marchmont Hall, a grand and beautiful house nestled in the hills of rural Monmouthshire. But, after a tragic accident, more than two decades of her life have disappeared from memory. When she returns to the Hall for Christmas, she has no recollection of her past there. Then, during a walk through the wintry landscape, she stumbles across a grave in the woods. Though the inscription is weathered, the headstone still tells her: a little boy is buried here. The discovery strikes a chord in Greta's mind, igniting a quest to recover her lost memories. A quest that will take her deeper into her own life, and that of her daughter . . . Praise for Lucinda Riley: 'A masterclass in beautiful writing' – The Sun 'Captivating . . . poignant yet uplifting' – Woman's Own 'Heart-wrenching, uplifting and utterly enthralling' – Lucy Foley, author of The Hunting Party A version of this story has previously been published under the title Not Quite an Angel, under the name Lucinda Edmonds – now extensively rewritten as The Angel Tree.

The Angel Tree

'A great accomplishment . . . A wonderful reflection of an extraordinary sweep of history' Barack Obama Timely, intimate and important, the long-awaited memoirs from one of the most influential leaders of our times For 16 years, Angela Merkel was Chancellor of Germany. She led the country through numerous crises, shaping both Germany and international politics with her actions and attitudes. In her memoirs, co-written with her long-time political advisor Beate Baumann, she reflects on her life in two German states – 35 years in the German Democratic Republic, 35 years in reunited Germany. More intimately than ever before, she talks about her childhood, youth, and studies in the GDR and the dramatic year of 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell and her political life began. She also shares recollections and insights from her meetings and conversations with the world's most powerful people. Discussing significant national, European, and international turning points, she shows how the decisions were made that shaped our times. Her book offers a unique insight into the inner workings of power – and is a compelling plea for freedom.

Freedom

Published in 1928, Orlando is a fictional biography that spans several centuries and follows the protagonist, Orlando, an Elizabethan nobleman who undergoes a mysterious gender transformation. The novel explores themes of gender identity, fluidity and the constraints imposed by societal norms. It challenges traditional notions of gender roles and raises questions about the nature of identity and the passage of time. Orlando is widely regarded as one of Virginia Woolf’s most innovative and influential works. It is known for its lyrical prose and experimental narrative style, blending historical fiction, fantasy and satire. The book is often celebrated for its contribution to feminist literature.

Orlando

It is a June day in London in 1923, and the lovely Clarissa Dalloway is having a party. Whom will she see? Her friend Peter, back from India, who has never really stopped loving her? What about Sally, with whom Clarissa had her life’s happiest moment? Meanwhile, the shell-shocked Septimus Smith is struggling with his life on the same London day. Luminously beautiful, Mrs Dalloway uses the internal monologues of the characters to tell a story of inter-war England. With this, Virginia Woolf changed the novel forever.

Mrs Dalloway

Juliet Stevenson reads Miss Marple’s Final Cases, Agatha Christie’s last collection of short stories to feature the woman who had become the world’s most popular female detective, Miss Jane Marple. Nine intriguing talesOne unequalled storytellerAn unknown wounded man in a church. A fatal riding accident. A corpse and a tape measure. Whether in St Mary Mead or further afield, there is always much wickedness lurking below the surface, should, like Jane Marple, you have the eyes to see it. Published posthumously, this collection of tales, seven of them featuring Agatha Christie’s much loved Miss Marple, plus two stand-alone stories, is a treasure trove. Never underestimate Miss Marple ‘She gives us an insight into human nature that few, if any, have surpassed.’ Susan Lewis ‘The acknowledged queen of detective fiction.’ Observer

Marple

Miss Marple’s Final Cases

Published in 1867, Thérèse Raquin is the novel which established Zola’s reputation as a writer who forensically explored the darker side of human nature. Thérèse is a half Algerian orphan, brought up in provincial France by her aunt and married off to her sickly cousin Camille. His ambition takes the three of them to Paris, where they set up home in the dank and dingy backstreets that run down to the Seine. The relentless tedium of life for Thérèse is eventually broken by the presence of Camille’s unscrupulous friend Laurent, sparking a series of increasingly desperate acts. Thérèse Raquin is a gritty and thought-provoking novel of sexual compulsion and its consequences on the lives of four people and a tabby cat.

Thérèse Raquin

'A triumph of imagination. Juliet Stevenson chronicles the terrible conditions in the concentration camps with an austere calm that makes the story hit the listener all the harder. She rejoices as we do in the life-saving kindness of strangers, and characterises the women brilliantly.' The Times The thrilling story of how nine young women, captured by the Nazis for being part of the Resistance, launched a breathtakingly bold escape and found their way home. As the Second World War raged across Europe, and the Nazi regime tightened its reign of horror and oppression, nine women, some still in their teens, joined the French and Dutch Resistance. Caught out in heroic acts against the brutal occupiers, they were each tortured and sent east into Greater Germany to a concentration camp, where they formed a powerful friendship. In 1945, as the war turned against Hitler, they were forced on a Death March, facing starvation and almost certain death. Determined to survive, they made a bid for freedom, and so began one of the most breathtaking tales of escape and resilience of the Second World War. The author is the great-niece of one of the nine, and she interweaves their gripping flight across war-torn Europe with her own detective work, uncovering the heart-stopping escape and survival of these heroes who fought fearlessly against Nazi Germany and lived to tell the tale. --------- 'A compelling, beautifully written story of resilience, friendship and survival.' Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz 'The Nine is poignant, powerful, and shattering, distilling the horror of the Holocaust through the lens of nine unforgettable women...' Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code and The Alice Network

The Nine

Juliet Stevenson reads Agatha Christie’s The Thirteen Problems, the series of linked short stories that introduced readers to the Tuesday Night Club and to the woman who would become the world’s most popular female detective, Miss Jane Marple. A weekly dinner partyTen amateur sleuthsThe Tuesday Night Club murdersOn a quiet Tuesday in St Mary Mead, a group of friends gather for dinner. A policeman, a clergyman, a solicitor, an author, an artist, and an unassuming lady with a shrewd gaze – Miss Jane Marple. Conversation naturally turns to crime. Each recounts a seemingly unsolvable mystery. Each thinks they know the answer. But it’s the one they least expect who understands the true nature of each wicked act… Never underestimate Miss Marple ‘Billions of readers can’t be wrong.’ Dreda Say Mitchell ‘The plots are so good that one marvels . . . most of them would have made a full-length thriller.’ Daily Mirror

The Thirteen Problems

One of the most important books of the growing feminist movement of the 1950s, it was brought to a wider public by the Nobel Prize award to Doris Lessing in 2007. Authoress Anna Wulf attempts to overcome writer’s block by writing a comprehensive ‘golden notebook’ which draws together the preoccupations of her life, each of which is examined in a different notebook: sources of her creative inspiration in a black book, communism in a red book, the breakdown of her marriage in a yellow book, and day-to-day emotions and dreams in a blue book. Anna’s struggle to unify the various strands of her life – emotional, political and professional – amasses into a fascinating encyclopaedia of female experience in the ‘50s. In this authentic, taboo-breaking novel, Lessing brings the plight of women’s lives, from obscurity behind closed doors, into broad daylight. The Golden Notebook resonates with the concerns and experiences of a great many women and is a true modern classic, thoroughly deserving of its reputation as a feminist bible. A notoriously long and complex work, it is given a new life by this – its first unabridged recording.

The Golden Notebook

In Madame Bovary, one of the great novels of nineteenth-century France, Flaubert draws a deeply felt and sympathetic portrait of a woman who, having married a country doctor and found herself unhappy with a rural, genteel existence, longs for love and excitement. However, her aspirations and her desires to escape only bring her further disappointment and eventually lead to unexpected, painful consequences. Flaubert’s critical portrait of bourgeois provincial life remains as powerful as ever.

Madame Bovary

"Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, reforms; betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition and disappointment. Dorothea Brooke is an outstanding heroine; Middlemarch is filled with characters that are vivid and true, comic and moving. It is one of the greatest novels in the English language."

Middlemarch

An all-new collection of spring-themed mysteries from the master of the genre.With spring comes April showers and blossoming fields – but wickedness is never far from the surface. With the turning of the year, Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple, Tommy and Tuppence and many more of Agatha Christie’s unforgettable creations tangle with a season of sinister schemes and perilous crimes. INCLUDES THE STORIES: The Market Basing Mystery The Case of the Missing Lady The Herb of Death How Does Your Garden Grow? Swan Song Miss Marple Tells a Story Have You Got Everything You Want? The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan Ingots of Gold The Soul of the Croupier The Girl in the Train Greenshaw’s Folly

SINISTER SPRING: Murder and Mystery from the Queen of Crime

When Mrs Dashwood is forced by an avaricious daughter-in-law to leave the family home in Sussex, she takes her three daughters to live in a modest cottage in Devon. For Elinor, the eldest daughter, the move means a painful separation from the man she loves, but her sister Marianne finds in Devon the romance and excitement which she longs for. The contrasting fortunes and temperaments of the two girls, as they struggle to cope in their different ways with the cruel events which fate has in store for them, are portrayed by Jane Austen with her usual irony, humour and profound sensitivity.

Svenska Ljud Classica

Sense and Sensibility

An all-new collection of autumn-themed mysteries from the master of the genre.Autumn is the season of misty mornings and cosy nights in, but as the leaves begin to fall the nights get longer and the shadows grow darker… Secluded cottages, eerie manors and ghostly hauntings and cursed tombs abound in this collection of 12 supernatural mysteries and murderous plots featuring Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and Agatha Christie’s other favourite detectives. INCLUDES THE STORIES: Murder in the Mews The Case of the Rich Woman While the Light Lasts Triangle at Rhodes Death by Drowning The Bird with the Broken Wing The Lemesurier Inheritance The House of Lurking Death Tape-Measure Murder The Voice in the Dark Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds Witness for the Prosecution

AUTUMN CHILLS: Tales of Intrigue from the Queen of Crime

A profound, powerful and moving collection of 100 letters from around the world responding to the climate crisis, introduced by Emma Thompson and lovingly illustrated by CILIP award winner Jackie Morris. ‘All power to this amazing project.’ JOANNE HARRIS ‘Makes sense of the climate crisis in a whole new way’ MAGID MAGID How can we begin to talk about what is happening to the world? How can we explain to our children, and to ourselves, what the future of our planet might look and feel like? Letters to the Earthis the beginning of a new conversation. One that attempts to answer some of these questions by listening to the voices of parents and children; politicians and poets; songwriters and scientists. Gathering together over 100 letters written in response to a callout from Culture Declares Emergency, each entry begins to give language to the unspeakable, and shows how our collective power is present when we are ready to slow down and listen to each other. It’s natural to feel worried or concerned about what the future of the earth holds. These letters are an opportunity to reflect on our connection to the planet and the way it faithfully sustains us. But they are also an opportunity to act, to respond to this crisis. To put pen to paper and make your voice heard. Includes contributions from activist Yoko Ono, actor Mark Rylance, poet Kate Tempest, actor Mark Rylance, author Laline Paull, illustrator of The Lost Words Jackie Morris, novelist Anna Hope, environmental writer Jay Griffiths and Green Party MP Caroline Lucas. This audiobook includes performances from over 60 actors, authors, and activists, including: – Emma Thompson – Mark Rylance – Andrew Scott – Juliet Stevenson – Caroline Lucas MP – Alex Lawther – Kate Tempest – Matthew Todd – Jumoke Fashola – Dr Gail Bradbrook – Jackie Morris – Morfydd Clark – Danny Sapani – Hannah Scott – Paapa Essiedu – Anna Hope – Greg Hicks – Sudha Bhuchar – Tyrone Huggins – and the Youth Strikers The full cast also includes: Jo McInness, Jay Griffiths, Kay Michael, Jennifer Lim, Greg Hicks, Freya Manor, Leah Brotherhead, Isla Lee, Dolly Webb, Nia Towle, Chirag Lobo, Sudha Bhuchar, Charlie Beck, Kiki May, Daniela Torres Perez, Justice Savage, Simreth Child, Olivia Dowd, Jessica Hayles, Jem Bendell, Hairkiran Dhingra, Simon McBurney, Sylvian, Stephen Dillane, Nimmi, Mickey Lyndon, Nicola Espitalier Noel, Joy Elias-Rilwan, Colin Brown, Jumoke Fashola, Jessica Siân, Matthew Todd, Blythe Pepino, Dr Martin Shaw, Azul-Valerie Thomé, Naomi Wirthner, Ashby Martin, Tia Khodabocus, Dr Rupert Read, Mairéad Godber, Toni Spencer, Mina Andala, Paul-Ryan Carberry, Saba da Silva, Luzmira Zerpa, Farhana Yamin, and Lee Ross. Music © ‘I’m Going to Lift My People Up’ 2019 The Fire Choir, led by Blythe Pepino; ‘Turtle Dove’ 2019 Lee Ross; ‘One Love’ 2019 Jarvis Smith at the Rally for the Imagination, Youth Strike 4 Climate, 20th September, organised by Culture Declares, Music Declares, and Architects Declare; ‘Power’ 2019 The Fire Choir, led by Blythe Pepino.

Letters to the Earth

THE TIMES NOVEL OF THE YEAR A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2022 A GOOD HOUSEKEEPING BOOK OF THE YEAR 'It takes the most ferocious intelligence, skill, and a deep reservoir of sadness to write a novel as funny as this. I adored it' - Meg Mason, author of Sorrow & Bliss 'A devastating treat of a novel: funny, furious, dark and delicious' - Sarah Waters, author of Fingersmith Meet the Hanrahan family, gathering for a momentous weekend as famous artist and notorious egoist Ray Hanrahan prepares for a new exhibition of his art – the first in many decades – and one he is sure will burnish his reputation for good. His three children will be there: beautiful Leah, always her father’s biggest champion; sensitive Patrick, who has finally decided to strike out on his own; and insecure Jess, the youngest, who has her own momentous decision to make . . . And what of Lucia, Ray’s steadfast and selfless wife? She is an artist, too, but has always had to put her roles as wife and mother first. What will happen if she decides to change? For Lucia is hiding secrets of her own, and as the weekend unfolds and the exhibition approaches, she must finally make a choice. The longer the marriage, the harder truth becomes . . . The Exhibitionist is the extraordinary fifth novel from Charlotte Mendelson, a dazzling exploration of art, sacrifice, toxic family politics, queer desire, and personal freedom. 'Delicious, heartbreaking . . . Fabulously written and utterly compelling' - Marian Keyes, author of Grown-Ups

The Exhibitionist

When Mrs Dashwood is forced by an avaricious daughter-in-law to leave the family home in Sussex, she takes her three daughters to live in a modest cottage in Devon. For Elinor, the eldest daughter, the move means a painful separation from the man she loves, but her sister Marianne finds in Devon the romance and excitement which she longs for. The contrasting fortunes and temperaments of the two girls as they struggle to cope in their different ways with the cruel events which fate has in store for them are portrayed by Jane Austen with her usual irony, humour and profound sensibility. Juliet Stevenson is acknowledged one of the finest interpreters of Jane Austen.

Sense and Sensibility

Published in 1922, the same year as Ulysses and The Waste Land, Jacob’s Room is Virginia Woolf’s own modernist manifesto. Ostensibly a study of a young man’s life on the eve of the Great War, it is really a bomb thrown into the world of the conventional novel, as she attempts to capture the richness and randomness of life’s encounters. Jacob Flanders is a mere point of contact between a crowd of people, appearing and disappearing in a tableau in which all is flux, without certainty and without a controlling viewpoint. But it seems that the author could not maintain this rigorous impersonality, and the radical technique breaks down, so that we finally see Jacob as a person, just as his world is blown apart.

Jacob's Room

The Portrait of a Lady tells the compelling and ultimately tragic tale of a beautiful young American woman’s encounter with European sophistication. Set principally in England and Italy, the story follows Isabel Archer’s fortunes as a variety of admirers vie for her hand. Her choice will be crucial, and she is not wanting for advice, whether from the generous- spirited Ralph Touchett or the charming but rootless Madame Merle.

The Portrait of a Lady

Anne Elliot has grieved for seven years over the loss of her first and only love, Captain Frederick Wentworth. When their paths finally cross again, Anne finds herself slighted and all traces of their former intimacy gone. As the pair continue to share the same social circle, dramatic events in Lyme Regis, and later in Bath, conspire to unravel the knots of deceit and misunderstanding in this beguiling and gently comic story of love and fidelity.

Persuasion : Abridged

Written before she began her experiments in the writing of fiction, Virginia Woolf’s second novel, Night and Day, is a story about a group of young people trying to discover what it means to fall in love. It asks all the big questions: What does it mean to fall in love? Does marriage grant happiness? What is happiness?

Night and Day

Winner of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2008, The Road Home is the best-selling story of Lev, a middle-aged migrant from Eastern Europe, who moves to London in search of work after losing his wife and job. Lev’s London is awash with money, celebrity and complacency. The world Tremain creates is both convincing and poignant.

The Road Home

Arrogant, self-willed and egotistical, Emma is Jane Austen’s most unusual heroine. Her interfering ways and inveterate matchmaking are at once shocking and comic. She is ‘handsome, clever and rich’ and has ‘a disposition to think too well of herself’. When she decides to introduce the humble Harriet Smith to the delights of genteel society and to find her a suitable husband, she precipitates herself and her immediate circle into a web of misunderstanding and intrigue, from which no-one emerges unchanged.

Emma : Abridged

Two leading English classical actors, Juliet Stevenson and Simon Russell Beale, open the doors to eight important plays, including Much Ado About Nothing, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter’s Tale, Measure for Measure, and All’s Well That Ends Well. These newly written introductions by David Timson have proved eminently useful for young audiences coming to Shakespeare for the first time. Explained clearly, the introductions also feature numerous excerpts from the plays themselves.

Stories from Shakespeare 3

To The Lighthouse is Virginia Woolf’s most accomplished novel, and her most autobiographical. It tells of one summer spent by the Ramsay family and their friends in their holiday home in Scotland. Offshore stands the lighthouse, remote, inaccessible, an eternal presence in a changing world. A projected visit to the lighthouse forms the heart of this extraordinary novel which, through the minds of the various characters, explores the nature of time, memory, transience and eternity. The style has the clarity of a diamond which shimmers in the mind, making To The Lighthouse one of the most unforgettable novels of the twentieth century.

To the Lighthouse : Abridged

Northanger Abbey : Abridged

At the tender age of ten, Fanny Price is ‘adopted’ by her rich relations and is removed from the poverty of her home in Portsmouth to the opulence of Mansfield Park. The transplantation is not a happy one. Dependent, neglected and forgotten, Fanny struggles to come to terms with her new life until, tested almost to the limits of endurance, she assumes her rightful role.

Mansfield Park : Abridged

Wealthy Maggie Verver has everything she could ever ask for – except a husband, and a title. While in Italy, acquiring art for his museum back in the states, Maggie’s millionaire father Adam decides to remedy this and acquire a husband for Maggie. Enter Prince Amerigo, of a titled but now poor aristocratic Florentine family. Amerigo is the perfect candidate. Delighted, Maggie then reciprocates by choosing a partner for her widower father: childhood friend Charlotte Stant. The stage is set, and what unfolds is a deep and gripping exploration of fidelity and the politics of love and marriage. Published in 1904, The Golden Bowl displays Henry James at his finest: James weaves scene upon scene, set piece upon set piece, into a seamless whole, through a richly dense tapestry of beautiful, flowing prose. Along with The Ambassadors and The Wings of the Dove, it constitutes James’s final and most rewarding phase as a novelist.

The Golden Bowl

Following a violent and messy divorce, young Maisie Farange floats back and forth between her parents, Beale and Ida, who use her as a weapon to torment each other in their ongoing, internecine war. Eventually the parents both remarry, and it becomes clear that the new spouses care more for Maisie than her own parents. Beale and Ida soon embark on a series of extramarital affairs, leaving Maisie in the care of the new stepparents, who begin their own affair with each other. What Maisie Knew is a remarkable tour de force from James’s late-middle period, and an insightful look at the psyche of a child who is thrust into the adult world of drama and failed relationships.

What Maisie Knew

‘A truthful, exciting, agonising adult love triangle. An emotional labyrinth, with monsters, great risks – and survival.’ Laline Paull, author of The Bees For Lucy, marriage to Mark provided an anchor after several years of drifting casually across countries, into jobs and out of relationships. Now forty-two, her anchor is working loose. Bewildered by the demands of motherhood and dissatisfied by her work, she has also grown understandably resentful of her husband: Mark has serious difficulties of his own and whilst harsh self-reliance has kept him sane, it has alienated his wife. When Lucy falls in love with Angus, a pianist in his sixties, her shock is extreme. Adamant that she will not deceive her husband, she instead asks his advice. Mark’s reaction, however, is startlingly unorthodox, leaving Lucy to steer an impossible course between duty and desire, adventure and security. As her marriage falters and Angus presses for commitment, she is forced to choose between family and self, with lifelong consequences for everyone. Infused with her trademark precision, clarity and dark humour, Mary Loudon’s searing, highly-charged novel My House is Falling Down is a fearless exploration of what infidelity means when no one is lying, and how brutal honesty may yet prove the biggest taboo in our relationships.

My House Is Falling Down

One bookshop. Fifty-one rules. Three women who break them all. 1950. Bloomsbury Books on London's Lamb's Conduit Street has resisted change for a hundred years, run by men and guided by the manager's unbreakable rules. But after the turmoil of war in Europe, the world is changing and the women in the shop have plans. The brilliant and stylish Vivien Lowry, still grieving her fiancé who was killed in action, has a long list of grievances, the biggest of which is Alec McDonough, the head of fiction. Loyal Grace Perkins is torn between duty and dreams of her own while struggling to support her family following her husband's breakdown. Fiercely bright Evie Stone was one of the first female Cambridge students to earn a degree, but was denied an academic position in favour of a less accomplished male rival. Now she plans to remake her own future. As these Bloomsbury Girls interact with literary figures of the time among them Daphne du Maurier, Samuel Beckett, Peggy Guggenheim, Vivien, Grace and Evie plot out a richer and more rewarding future.

Bloomsbury Girls - The heart-warming novel of female friendship and dreams (Unabridged)

Published in 1897, The Spoils of Poynton is one of the quintessential works of James’s middle period. The ‘spoils’ of the book’s title refer to furniture and other objets d’art that the widow Adela Gereth moves to her cottage so that they are kept away from the clutches of her coarse future daughter-in-law, Mona Brigstock. However, events take an unexpected turn when her married son Owen is attracted to her friend, Fleda Vetch. This tightly constructed novel, one of James’s shortest, depicts the struggle between mother and son, with the idealistic and put-upon Fleda caught in the crossfire.

The Spoils of Poynton

Milly Theale is a young, beautiful and fabulously wealthy American. When she arrives in London and meets the equally beautiful but impoverished Kate Croy, they form an intimate friendship. But nothing is as it seems: materialism, romance, self-delusion and ultimately fatal illness insidiously contaminate the glamorous social whirl.

The Wings of the Dove

Contains the unabridged audiobook and an educational audio guide. The ‘Educational Editions’ from Naxos AudioBooks allow listeners to enjoy important works of fiction and learn about their key elements. Each ‘Educational Edition’ combines the unabridged audiobook with an indispensable audio guide that gives background and author detail and explores the book’s themes, structure, key passages and critical perspectives – stimulating content for students and keen listeners wishing to discover more. Jane Austen’s most popular novel, originally published in 1813, some 17 years after it was first written, presents the Bennet family of Longbourn. Against the background of gossipy Mrs Bennet and the detached Mr Bennet, the quest is on for husbands for the five daughters. The spotlight falls on Elizabeth, second eldest, who is courted by Mr Darcy though initially she is more concerned with the fate of her other sisters. This marvellous account of family life in Regency England is read with customary panache by Juliet Stevenson.

Pride and Prejudice (Educational Edition)

‘What is more vulgar than the ideal of novelists? In real life, how many men and women fall in love?’ So says Rhoda Nunn, George Gissing’s formidable heroine. Through a gripping and thought-provoking story, Gissing presents the reality for Victorian women: a society in which marriage is judged to be the only acceptable way forward. His perspective is strikingly sympathetic for its time, and as such the novel has an exhilarating freshness far removed from the contemporary sentimental romantics. The young Monica Madden cries for two days before her marriage to Edmund Widdowson; the ensuing claustrophobia, which opens the door for the more desirable Bevis, contrasts with Rhoda’s independence – yet Rhoda’s own principles are tested when she falls in love rather by accident… The Odd Women is a remarkable book, ultimately optimistic in its hope for a societal shift that will benefit both men and women alike.

The Odd Women

The first volume of David Timson’s series retelling of the stories from Shakespeare’s plays was widely praised by newspapers and educators alike. Here is volume II, with more key plays. Including Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, and Henry IV, all texts which regularly appear on the exam syllabus. As before, the stories are illustrated by numerous examples from the plays themselves. They are read by two leading Shakespearean actors: Juliet Stevenson and Alex Jennings.

Stories from Shakespeare 2

In 1892, Gertrude Bell visited Persia (now Iran) shortly after the appointment of her uncle, Sir Frank Lascelles, as British minister in Tehran. Three years later came Persian Pictures, Gertrude Bell’s first written work, which presents a series of vivid sketches of Persian culture and society at the time. Bell explores various cities and landscapes, and encounters local characters along the way, providing a unique perspective on Persian life and customs. While much of what is depicted in Persian Pictures has long since changed, Bell’s writing is a valuable account of the anachronisms and inconsistencies of the dying dynasty of medieval Persia. Her depiction of Muharram – the month of mourning for Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed – and Ramadan, display a mind finely attuned to the differences and similarities between Islam and Christianity, and East and West. Persian Pictures is both travelogue and meditation – an elegiac and beautifully observed account of a spellbinding land.

Persian Pictures

Hedda Gabler, a deceased General’s daughter, marries dull George Tesman and foresees a life of middleclass tedium stretching ahead when they return from a honeymoon they could not afford to a house they cannot afford. Increasingly, she is drawn into the clutches of her admirer, Judge Brack, who seeks to establish a menage a trois. Then a former flame arrives in the brilliant but dissolute Eilert Lovborg to rival her husband for an academic post. After a drunken orgy, the manuscript of Lovborg’s treatise falls into her hands and she destroys it. Discovery traps her, her romantic ideas are shattered, and there seems only one way out of the net – the pistols of her father, the General.

World Classics

Hedda Gabler

Following a chance meeting at a gambling hall in Europe, the separate lives of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth are immediately intertwined. Daniel, an Englishman of uncertain parentage, becomes Gwendolen’s redeemer as she, trapped in a loveless marriage, finds herself drawn to his spiritual and altruistic nature. But Daniel’s path is set when he rescues a young Jewish woman from suicide… Daniel Deronda, George Eliot’s final novel, is a remarkable work, encompassing themes of religion, imperialism and gender within its broad scope.

Daniel Deronda

This audiobook narrated by Juliet Stevenson shares the story of a world-renowned physicist who seeks gravity's true nature and finds wisdom in embracing its force in her life Claudia de Rham has been playing with gravity her entire life. As a diver, experimenting with her body's buoyancy in the Indian Ocean. As a pilot, soaring over Canadian waterfalls on dark mornings before beginning her daily scientific research. As an astronaut candidate, dreaming of the experience of flying free from Earth's pull. And as a physicist, discovering new sides to gravity's irresistible personality by exploring the limits of Einstein's general theory of relativity. In The Beauty of Falling, de Rham shares captivating stories about her quest to gain intimacy with gravity, to understand both its feeling and fundamental nature. Her life's pursuit led her from a twist of fate that snatched away her dream of becoming an astronaut to an exhilarating breakthrough at the very frontiers of gravitational physics. While many of us presume to know gravity quite well, the brightest scientists in history have yet to fully answer the simple question: what exactly is gravity? de Rham reveals how great minds—from Newton and Einstein to Stephen Hawking, Andrea Ghez, and Roger Penrose—led her to the edge of knowledge about this fundamental force. She found hints of a hidden side to gravity at the particle level where Einstein's theory breaks down, leading her to develop a new theory of "massive gravity." de Rham shares how her life's path turned from a precipitous fall to an exquisite flight toward the discovery of something entirely new about our surprising, gravity-driven universe.

The Beauty of Falling

"One of Katherine Mansfield’s finest short stories, Bliss, introduces us to Bertha, who experiences a sense of rapture as she reflects on her life. On her walk home one day, she is overwhelmed by a sense of bliss and contentment. However, her joy later turns to disappointment as she discovers her husband is having an affair with her new friend Pearl. Katherine Mansfield became well-known for her focus on psychological conflicts and complex characters; and Bliss displays these qualities brilliantly, exploring themes of marriage, adultery and duplicity. This set also contains five other short stories by Katherine Mansfield – Mr Reginald Peacock’s Day, Pictures, The Little Governess, Feuille D’Album, and A Dill Pickle."

Bliss and Other Stories

Published in 1791, A Simple Story concerns Miss Milner, who announces her passion for her guardian, a Catholic priest, thereby breaking through the barriers of his religious vocation and society’s standards for proper female behaviour. Central themes of the novel include the importance of proper education for women. Elizabeth Inchbald was a dramatist and actress and this can be detected in her narrative, particularly her lively dialogue. The novel was well received on its publication, with one reviewer writing that ‘Mrs Inchbald has discovered the true path which she ought to pursue’. In several respects A Simple Story anticipates the writing of Jane Austen, especially in Inchbald’s concise and ironic style. Here it is given a delightful reading by the acclaimed actress Juliet Stevenson.

A Simple Story

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