Books in Classic Collection series

Black Beauty spends his youth in a loving home, surrounded by friends and cared for by his owners. But when circumstances change, he learns that not all humans are so kind. Passed from hand to hand, Black Beauty witnesses love and cruelty, wealth and poverty, friendship and hardship . . . Will the handsome horse ever find a happy and lasting home? Carefully retold in clear contemporary language, and presented with delightful illustrations, these favorite classic stories capture the heart and imagination of young readers. By retelling the story in a shorter, simpler form, these books become highly engaging for children, and the color illustrations help with both comprehension and interest level. Black Beauty is part of a collectible series that has strong gift appeal.

William Makepeace Thackeray’s masterpiece, still as relevant today as it was upon its first publicationSet during the time of the Napoleonic Wars, this classic gives a satirical picture of a worldly society. The novel revolves around the exploits of the impoverished but beautiful and devious Becky Sharp.This novel is part of Brilliance Audio's extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.

Take a walk around the Secret Garden. Experience boarding school with A Little Princess. See life through a horse’s eyes with Black Beauty. Be enchanted by charming and hot-headed Anne of Green Gables. Carefully retold in clear contemporary language, and presented with delightful illustrations, these favorite classic stories will capture the heart and imagination of young readers. By retelling the story in a shorter, simpler form, children will find these books highly engaging, and the color illustrations help with both comprehension and interest level.

A young British girl born and reared in India loses her neglectful parents in an earthquake. She is returned to England to live at her uncle's castle. Her uncle is very distant due to the loss of his wife ten years before. Neglected once again, she begins exploring the estate and discovers a garden that has been locked and neglected. Aided by one of the servants' boys, she begins restoring the garden, and eventually discovers some other secrets of the manor.

The Time Traveler thought he could take the lessons of the future home to the past, if only he could get home.…When the Time Traveler boldly stepped out of his machine for the first time, he found himself in the far future, in an almost unrecognizable world. In another, more utopian age, creatures seemed to live together free of strife and competition. The Time Traveler thought he could learn the secrets of these happy beings and take the lessons of life to his own time - until he discovered that his marvelous invention, his only means of escape, had been stolen.This novel is part of Brilliance Audio's extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.

Top 5 Finalist on PBS's The Great American Read in 2018Jane Austen’s insightful and sometimes wry Pride and Prejudice provides today’s listeners with a fascinating look into the British society during the nineteenth century.This delightful novel of manners follows the Bennets, a family of five daughters and humble fortune. With her savory wit and satire, Jane Austen unveils the lives of the Bennet sisters as they endeavor to find their place in society—some taking a long road to get there. The arrival of Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy turn their pastoral lives upside down, and listeners will take in the story with rapt attention, eager to discover if Elizabeth, cured of her prejudice, and Mr. Darcy, cured of his pride, will finally fall into each other’s arms.This novel is part of Brilliance Audio’s extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.

Neither before nor after the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin has a woman ever so moved America to take action against injustice as Harriet Beecher Stowe.Published in 1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin brought the abolitionists' message to the public conscience. Indeed, Abraham Lincoln greeted Stowe in 1863 as "the little lady who made this big war."Eliza Harris, a slave whose child is to be sold, escapes her beloved home on the Shelby plantation in Kentucky and heads North, eluding the hired slave catchers. Aided by the Underground Railroad, Quakers, and others opposed to the Fugitive Slave Act, Eliza, her son, and her husband George run toward Canada.As the Harrises flee to freedom, another slave, Uncle Tom, is sent "down the river" for sale. Too loyal to abuse his master's trust, too Christian to rebel, Tom wrenches himself from his family. Befriending a white child, Evangeline St. Clare, Tom is purchased by her father and taken to their home in New Orleans. Although Evangeline's father finally resolves to free his slaves, his sudden death alters their fates, sending Tom farther downriver to Simon Legree's plantation, and the whips of Legree's overseers.This novel is part of Brilliance Audio's extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.

Featured title on PBS's The Great American Read in 2018A classic tale of Gothic horror, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been a world favorite since it was first published in 1818.Originally published as part of a contest between Mary Shelley, her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron, Frankenstein has since captured countless imaginations. When Dr. Victor Frankenstein learns the secret of imparting life to inanimate matter, he is eager to test his theories. The bones he collects to construct his human subject become a gruesome, frightening creature, endowed with supernatural size and strength. Lonely and miserable, the created comes to hate his creator. When the monster murders Frankenstein’s brother and his bride, the doctor embarks on a heated pursuit, only to put his own life in grave danger.This novel is part of Brilliance Audio's extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.

Utopia is the name given by Sir Thomas More to an imaginary island in this political work written in 1516. Book I of Utopia, a dialogue, presents a perceptive analysis of contemporary social, economic, and moral ills in England. Book II is a narrative describing a country run according to the ideals of the English humanists, where poverty, crime, injustice, and other ills do not exist. Locating his island in the New World, More bestowed it with everything to support a perfectly organized and happy people.The name of this fictitious place, Utopia, coined by More, passed into general usage and has been applied to all such ideal fictions, fantasies, and blueprints for the future, including works by Rabelais, Francis Bacon, Samuel Butler, and several by H. G. Wells, including his A Modern Utopia.

We recognize the philosophy of the original Americans as coming from the earth we walk on, from those who preceded us. As we read the wisdom of these peoples, it is possible to feel a reconnection with our land and ourselves. This beautiful collection of the best of Native American wisdom features the thoughts of Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, Black Elk, Ohiyesa, and many others on Native American ways of living, learning, and dying. Taken from orations, recorded observations of life and social affairs, and other first-person testimonies, this book selects a wide range of Native American wisdom and distills it to its essence in short, digestible quotes that are meaningful and timeless -- perhaps even more timely now than when they were written.

2013 Audie Award Nominee, Short Stories/CollectionsUniversally acclaimed from the time it was first published in 1968, Slouching Towards Bethlehem has been admired for decades as a stylistic masterpiece. Academy Award-winning actress Diane Keaton (Annie Hall, The Family Stone) performs these classic essays, including the title piece, which will transport the listener back to a unique time and place: the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco during the neighborhood’s heyday as a countercultural center.This is Joan Didion’s first work of nonfiction, offering an incisive look at the mood of 1960s America and providing an essential portrait of the Californian counterculture. She explores the influences of John Wayne and Howard Hughes, and offers ruminations on the nature of good and evil in a Death Valley motel room. Taking its title from W. B. Yeats’ poem "The Second Coming," the essays in Slouching Towards Bethlehem all reflect, in one way or another, that "the center cannot hold."Slouching Towards Bethlehem is part of Audible’s A-List Collection, featuring the world’s most celebrated actors narrating distinguished works of literature that each star had a hand in selecting.