Books in Classics Collection series

A classic romance and social critique by the acclaimed author of Howard's End and A Passage to India Originally published in 1908, A Room with a View was one of E. M. Forster's earliest works and today has become one of his most famous. Set in Florence, Italy, and Surrey, England, this accomplished and beautiful novel centers on the young lady Lucy Honeychurch. Her choice between the propriety of her social class and the chance for an unconventional love affair will decide the course of her future.

Anne Bronte’s heart-breaking tale of a woman's struggle for independence.Helen "Graham" has returned to Wildfell Hall in flight from a disastrous marriage. Exiled to the desolate moorland mansion, she adopts an assumed name and earns her living as a painter.This novel is part of Brilliance Audio's extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.

Henry Fleming is primed to prove his patriotism and to earn that “red badge of courage.”Bored with farm life, and anxious for some excitement, Henry Fleming sets off to join the Union troops fighting the Civil War. An inexperienced fighter, he is anxious to get into battle to prove his worth. He swaggers to keep up his spirits waiting for battle, but when suddenly thrust into the slaughter, he is overcome with blind fear and runs from the field of battle.He is ashamed when he joins the wounded, for he has not earned their "red badge of courage" and becomes enraged when he witnesses the death of his terribly maimed friend. In a confused struggle with his own army’s retreating soldiers, he is wounded but not by enemy gunfire. In an effort to redeem himself in his own eyes, he begins to fight frantically and, in the heat of battle, automatically seizes the regiment’s colors in a daring charge that proves him truly courageous.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 2018Dickens’ extraordinary novel of Victorian valuesGreat Expectations chronicles the progress of Pip from childhood through adulthood. As he moves from the marshes of Kent to London society, he encounters a variety of extraordinary characters: from Magwitch, the escaped convict, to Miss Havisham and her ward, the arrogant and beautiful Estella.In this fascinating story, Dickens shows the dangers of being driven by a desire for wealth and social status. Pip must establish a sense of self against the plans which others seem to have for him—and somehow discover a firm set of values and priorities.This novel is part of Brilliance Audio’s extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.

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.

The late Mr Waterton having, some time ago, expressed his opinion that ravens are gradually becoming extinct in England, I offered the few following words about my experience of these birds. The raven in this story is a compound of two great originals, of whom I was, at different times, the proud possessor. The first was in the bloom of his youth, when he was discovered in a modest retirement in London, by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had from the first, as Sir Hugh Evans says of Anne Page, 'good gifts', which he improved by study and attention in a most exemplary manner. He slept in a stable—generally on horseback—and so terrified a Newfoundland dog by his preternatural sagacity, that he has been known, by the mere superiority of his genius, to walk off unmolested with the dog's dinner, from before his face. He was rapidly rising in acquirements and virtues, when, in an evil hour, his stable was newly painted. He observed the workmen closely, saw that they were careful of the paint, and immediately burned to possess it. On their going to dinner, he ate up all they had left behind, consisting of a pound or two of white lead; and this youthful indiscretion terminated in death. While I was yet inconsolable for his loss, another friend of mine in Yorkshire discovered an older and more gifted raven at a village public-house, which he prevailed upon the landlord to part with for a consideration, and sent up to me. The first act of this Sage, was, to administer to the effects of his predecessor, by disinterring all the cheese and halfpence he had buried in the garden—a work of immense labour and research, to which he devoted all the energies of his mind. When he had achieved this task, he applied himself to the acquisition of stable language, in which he soon became such an adept, that he would perch outside my window and drive imaginary horses with great skill, all day. Perhaps even I never saw him at his best, for his former master sent his duty with him, 'and if I wished the bird to come out very strong, would I be so good as to show him a drunken man'—which I never did, having (unfortunately) none but sober people at hand.

From the author of Tess of the D’Urbervilles comes a fascinating novel, as powerful today as it was controversial during its original publicationThomas Hardy's last and arguably most controversial novel, Jude the Obscure is the story of a young country workman who is thwarted in his efforts for advancement at every turn. Hopelessly obsessed with becoming an Oxford student, Jude is also desperately lost and barred from good society because of his unconventional and complicated relationships with two different women. A sincere indictment of the day's societal norms, Jude the Obscure remains a powerful novel and an unforgettable literary experience.This novel is part of Brilliance Audio's extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.

The Story of KeeshThis story recounts the legend of Keesh, an Eskimo boy who used "brains not brawn" to defeat a powerful polar bear and save his people from starvation.The White SilenceIn London's naturalistic story, "The White Silence," a trio of characters have to cope with the cruel laws of nature in order to survive in the remote, vast land of the Yukon. This suspenseful story highlights both London's versatility and his accuracy in describing the natural world and his characters' reactions to it.The Man with the GashHere is one of London's famous stories of the Klondike, where men had to battle the elements, and often each other, to survive.This novel is part of Brilliance Audio's extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.

Anne Brontë's first novel, boldly drawn from her own experiences as a governessAnne Brontë wrote Agnes Grey out of an urgent need to inform her contemporaries about the desperate position of unmarried, educated women driven to take up the only "respectable" career open to them—that of a governess. Struggling with the monstrous Bloomfield children and then disdained in the superior Murray household, Agnes tells a story that is a compelling inside view of Victorian chauvinism and ruthless materialism.This novel is part of Brilliance Audio's extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.