Classics on MP3CD

Alexander the Great
Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)

1 disc

In this succinct portrait of Alexander the Great, distinguished scholar and historian Norman Cantor draws on the major writings of Alexander's contemporaries as well as the most recent psychological and cultural studies to illuminate this most legendary of men—a great figure in the ancient...

Classics of Childhood
Volume 1 (2008)

1 disc

This collection of children’s stories offers a mix of some best-loved tales as well as newer favorites.

Included are:
“Puss in Boots,” read by Robby Benson

“A Day at Santa’s Workshop,” read by Betty White

“Elfis, the Elf Who Saved Christmas,”...

Louis L'Amour Set
The Rider of the Ruby Hills and Showdown Trail (2006)

1 disc

"The Rider of the Ruby Hills"
Ross Hardy had made his decision. He sat in the middle of all he owned, a splendid Appaloosa gelding, a fine California saddle, a .44 Winchester rifle, and two walnut-stocked Colt .44 pistols. These were his all. It was a life that had left him rich in...

The Divine Comedy
Inferno,Purgatorio,Paradiso (2007)

1 disc

Blackstone Audio presents a new recording of this classic masterpiece, originally published in 1320, with award-winning narrator Ralph Cosham.

No words can describe the greatness of this work, a greatness both of theme and of artistry. Dante’s theme is universal; it involves the greatest...

The Ships of Earth
Homecoming Series Volume 3 (2008)

1 disc

With the continuing failure of the Oversoul, the artificially intelligent guardian computer of the planet Harmony, the human colonists have begun to repeat the devastations of war and conquest wrought on Earth. To repair itself and avert disaster, the Oversoul has called a group of sixteen...

A Tale of Two Cities (1998)

1 disc

When the starving French masses rise to overthrow a corrupt and decadent government, both the guilty and innocent become victims of their frenzied anger. Soon nothing stands in the way of the chilling figure they enlist for their cause—La Guillotine—the new invention for efficiently chopping...

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (2008)

1 disc

Lewis Carroll’s enduring tale begins with Alice chasing the White Rabbit down a rabbit hole, where she encounters a world of delightfully eccentric characters like the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Cheshire Cat, the Mock Turtle, and the Queen of Hearts. Throughout her fantastic journeys,...

Around the World In Eighty Days (1993)

1 disc

Phileas Fogg, a distinguished member of London’s Reform Club, takes up a wager to circle the globe in just eighty days. Together with his manservant Passepartout and a detective named Fix, Fogg makes a fantastic world tour utilizing every means of transportation available in the 1870’s. This...

Ben-Hur (2000)

2 discs

One of the most popular American novels of all time, Ben-Hur vividly reimagines the oppressive Roman occupation of ancient Palestine and the rise of Christianity. The saga of Judah Ben-Hur's spiritual journey from slavery to vengeance to redemption is both a vivid historical adventure and a...

Chronicles of Avonlea (1995)

1 disc

Listeners will want to know whether Anne Shirley appears in these stories of Avonlea and Spencervale. She does. In fact, page one starts off with Anne Shirley curled up on the window seat of Theodora Dix’s sitting-room where Anne was visiting for a fortnight of her vacation.

However, most...

David Copperfield (1992)

3 discs

David Copperfield is the timeless tale of a thoughtful orphan discovering how to live and love in a cutthroat, indifferent adult world. It firmly embraces all the eternal freshness, the comic delights, the tender warmth, and the ghastly horrors of childhood.

Of all Charles Dickens’s...

Don Quixote de la Mancha (1997)

3 discs

With a wealth of fancy and an irrepressible high spirit, this beloved adventure story pokes fun at the exaggerated social and literary conventions of Cervantes’ day. Driven mad by reading too many chivalric romances, Don Quixote decks himself out in rusty armor and a cardboard helmet,...

Dracula (1998)

1 disc

The Dracula mythology has inspired a vast subculture, but the story has never been better told than by Bram Stoker. He succeeds entirely in his aim to terrify. His myth is powerful because it allows evil to remain mysterious, unconquerable by strength of mind or virtuous action. Van Helsing's...

Emma (2008)

1 disc

Often considered to be Jane Austen’s finest work, Emma is the story of a charmingly self-deluded heroine whose injudicious matchmaking schemes often lead to substantial mortification. Emma, “handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the...

Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (2008)

1 disc

A masterpiece of nineteenth-century Gothic horror, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein also has the distinction of being the first science-fiction novel. Dr. Victor Frankenstein, an ambitious young scientist, is consumed by a fanatic desire to create a living being. He fashions an eight-foot creature and...

Further Chronicles of Avonlea (2009)

1 disc

Welcome, once again, to the charming byways of Avonlea and its people, as created by one of Canada’s most beloved authors. In this volume of heartwarming tales, a Persian cat plays an amazing role in a marriage proposal, a young girl risks losing her mother in her quest to find her father, and...

George Orwell Boxed Set
1984
Animal Farm (2007)

1 disc

1984

Orwell depicts a gray, totalitarian world in which privacy does not exist, news is manufactured according to the authorities' will, and those with unorthodox ideas are brainwashed or put to death. Orwell's 1949 nightmare vision of the world we were becoming is still...

Ivanhoe (1998)

2 discs

Set in England during Richard I’s reign, Sir Walter Scott’s fanciful, vivid reinterpretation of medieval life is a successful blend of fact, myth and romance.

Wilfred of Ivanhoe earns his father’s disapproval by falling in love with Rowena, his father’s ward. Then he serves...

Joan of Arc (1992)

1 disc

Few people know that Mark Twain wrote a major work on Joan of Arc. Still fewer know that he considered it not only his most important, but also his best work. Twain spent twelve years in research and many months in France doing archival work, and then made several attempts until he felt he...

Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)

1 disc

Geologist Otto Lidenbrock is perusing an ancient Icelandic manuscript when he discovers a mysterious encrypted note. The message reveals the account of a sixteenth-century explorer who claims to have found a passageway to the center of the earth.

In his quest to penetrate the planet’s...

King Kong (2005)

1 disc

KING KONG: His very name inspires awe, horror, and, for some of the greatest masters of contemporary science fiction, a strong affection. Find out why in this special collector’s edition of the original 1932 novelization of Wallace and Cooper’s movie, which includes commentary by eight...

Les Miserables (1996)

4 discs

Set in the Parisian underworld and plotted like a detective story, Les Misérables follows the adventures of Jean Valjean, originally an honest peasant, who has been imprisoned for nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving family. A hardened criminal upon his...

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1997)

1 disc

In this classic 1960s novel, Ken Kesey's hero is Randle Patrick McMurphy. You’ve never met anyone like Randle Patrick McMurphy. He’s a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who swaggers into the ward of a mental hospital and takes over. He’s a lusty, profane, life-loving fighter who...

Peter Pan (2000)

1 disc

Barrie works an indisputable magic on listeners of all ages in this classic tale of the “boy who wouldn’t grow up.” As a baby, Peter Pan fell out of his carriage and was taken by fairies to Neverland. There, he can fly and is the champion of the Lost Boys and a friend to the fairy Tinker...

Pride and Prejudice (2005)

1 disc

Pride and Prejudice captures the affectations of class-conscious eighteenth-century English families with matrimonial aims and rivalries. This story of the Bennet family and the novel's two protagonists, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, is told with sparkling wit.

The romantic...

Tales of Beatrix Potter (2001)

1 disc

Beatrix Potter’s charming stories have enchanted children for over a hundred years. This collection includes eighteen favorite tales about Peter Rabbit, Tom Kitten, Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs. Tittlemouse, and the others. Let your children share in the tradition of Beatrix Potter and her animal...

The Arabian Nights (1999)

1 disc

This collection of some of the best-known and best-loved tales from The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, or The Thousand and One Nights, includes the stories of Sinbad and his voyages, Ali Baba and the cave of the forty thieves, Aladdin and his wonderful lamp, and seven more fantastic...

The Canterbury Tales (2008)

2 discs

At the Tabard Inn, thirty travelers of widely varying classes and occupations are gathering to make the annual pilgrimage to Becket’s shrine at Canterbury. It is agreed that each traveler will tell four tales to help pass the time and that the host of the inn will judge the tales and reward the...

The Hiding Place (1993)

1 disc

At one time, Corrie Ten Boom would have laughed at the idea that she had a story to tell. For the first fifty years of her life, nothing out of the ordinary ever happened to her. She was an old-maid watchmaker living contentedly with her sister and their elderly father in the tiny Dutch house...

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

2 discs

Set amid the riot, intrigue, and pageantry of medieval Paris, Victor Hugo’s masterful tale of heroism and adventure has been a perennial favorite since its first publication in 1831. It is the story of Quasimodo, the deformed bell-ringer of the Notre Dame Cathedral, who falls in love with the...