Books in The Complete Classics series

Written at the peak of her career, Gaskells sorrowful tale of betrayed love is immensely affecting. For Paul Manning, one of the undeniable charms of the countryside is his beautiful yet naïve cousin Phillis. But, when Paul finds himself uncomfortably implicated in the romantic drama that unfolds between Phillis and his sophisticated colleague, country life suddenly becomes not quite the simple and artless pleasure it once was. Gaskells exploration of the threat posed to an uncomplicated, rustic way of life by the rapid industrialisation of the nineteenth century provides the backdrop to this touching tale of romance. The young English actor Joe Marsh makes his audiobook debut in a fine rendering of this gentle novel.

For three hundred years The Pilgrims Progress has remained perhaps the best-loved and most read of devotional fictions. In plain yet powerful and moving language, Bunyan tells the story of Christians struggle to attain salvation and the Gates of Heaven. He must pass through the Slough of Despond, ward off the temptations of Vanity Fair and fight the monstrous Apollyon... In Part II, his wife and children follow the same path, helped and protected by Great-heart, until for them too the trumpets sound on the other side.

In the grotesque bell-ringer Quasimodo, Victor Hugo created one of the most vivid characters in classic fiction. Quasimodo's doomed love for the beautiful gypsy girl Esmerelda is an example of the traditional love theme of beauty and the beast. Yet, set against the massive background of Notre Dame de Paris and interwoven with the sacred and secular life of medieval France, it takes on a larger perspective. The characters come to life: the poet Gringoire, the tormented priest Claude Frollo, the fun-loving captain Phoebus and above all Quasimodo and Esmeralda themselves. It is a tale peppered with humour but fuelled by the anguish which unfolds beneath the bells of the great cathedral of Paris.

In Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens created one of his most penetrating satires on the weaknesses of government in the Victorian era. He chose Marshalsea debtors' prison as the setting, where his own father had been imprisoned. The story revolves around a complex mystery involving conspiracy, debt and a disputed will that results in unexpected consequences for the main characters.

Rumis Spiritual Verses is the greatest mystical poem in Islamic culture and of all time. Rumi tells of our human separation from reality, love and truth. He shows how love neither erotic nor sentimental but divine, by which the universe is held together enlightens ignorance and dissolves suffering. The first book of the Masnavi is the key to the whole work: it takes off from simple, amusing tales into realms unimaginable, but wholly familiar to the human heart.

Virginia Woolf's third novel, Jacob's Room, marked a radical, new departure in her style: the most experimental of all her novels, it enacts the 'smashing and crashing' of form that Woolf called for in the modernist movement. Set in pre-war England, the novel tells the life story of Jacob Flanders. Through the collective memories of those who knew him, we follow his childhood, through to his time at Cambridge, and then into adulthood. Jacob's Room is an evocative and poignant story, made more so so as Woolf describes scenes and characters with a beauty unsurpassed. The author combines language in a majestic manner as she meditates on the inexorable flux of life and provides an elegiac stream found in her best-known work such as To the Lighthouse

In the village of Cranford, decorum is maintained at all times. Despite their poverty, the ladies are never vulgar about money (or their lack of it), and always follow the rules of propriety. But this discretion and gentility does not keep away tragedy; and when the worst happens, the Amazons of Cranford show the true strength of their honest affections. A masterpiece of social comedy, "Cranford" is as moving as it is funny, and as sharp as it is tender.

Father Brown is an eccentric priest with his own particular ways of dealing with crime. Narrator David Timson, having completed the whole of Arthur Conan Doyle s Sherlock Holmes canon a remarkable achievement turns his hand to the genial but certainly not innocent priest! This collection contains a group of stories from The Innocence of Father Brown, told unabridged.Included here are The Blue Cross, The Secret Garden, The Queer Feet, The Flying Stars, The Invisible Man, and The Honor of Israel Gow.

Mary Shelley's poignant exploration of the true depths of ambition and humanity has had a profound effect on readers since its conception in 1816. When scientist Victor Frankenstein forms a creature from the body parts of corpses, thus shattering the perceived limits of scientific understanding, the consequences are devastating on both a personal and a wider level. Our natural sympathies are challenged as Frankenstein becomes disgusted with his creation, who, in turn, begins to suffer from an acute sense of loneliness. When his desire for a companion is thwarted, he vows to take revenge upon Frankenstein. What ensues is singularly chilling in this gothic classic, which has spawned numerous film and theatre interpretations.

The intensely personal David Copperfield (widely regarded to be the most autobiographical of the author's novels) is one of Dickens's greatest works. We follow David Copperfield from birth and miserable childhood to inevitable tragedies, until he finally finds happiness later in life. Full of some of the most memorable characters in literary history, Nicholas Boulton's depiction of the oily Uriah Heep and David Copperfield's sinister stepfather Murdstone, do the novel full justice.

Wilkie Collins is a master of suspense, but his transfer to audiobook requires a cast of readers to faithfully reflect the eleven different characters who tell the story. Walter Hartright, a drawing teacher to two sisters, wants to marry Laura, though she is betrothed to another. But who is the mysterious woman in white who he encounters? Naxos AudioBooks brings together a strong cast to bring alive the mystery and suspense of The Woman in White.