Classical Europe

A fitting capstone for this comprehensive series, this sixth and final installment imparts a learned understanding of the forces that shaped - and continue to shape - Western culture.

"We are all travelers in the 'wilderness of the world' - travelers with a donkey." So Robert Louis Stevenson wrote to a friend on completing this enchanting account of a journey in rural France in 1878. Alone with his pack-donkey Modestine, and showing total disregard for discomfort, Stevenson relishes to the full his walking tour of the Cevennes.

Oscar Wilde told and retold his fairy tales to friends in private readings, refining them further each time before finally publishing them in two collections between 1888 and 1891 to great acclaim and lasting popularity ever since. Much of their charm is due to Wilde's intention that the stories be "studies in prose... meant partly for children, and partly for those who have kept the childlike faculties of wonder and joy, and who find in simplicity a subtle strangeness."

Greek arts, philosophy, science, and political discourse were a true gift to the world. In this audiobook, you will explore the ancient Greeks, the Byzantine Empire, the Greek War of Independence, the Megali Idea, the military junta, and modern-day governance - this audiobook covers Greek history from start to finish.

Published after his death, Dickens brilliantly brings to life a broad cast of colorful characters in the never solved mysterious disappearance of one Edwin Drood, all set in the rural hamlet of Cloisterham around the Cathedral close. Against a background of opium dens, nocturnal graveyard visits, and moldering monastic crypts, Dickens weaves a tightly knit plot centered on the ominous disappearance of young Edwin Drood.

In the winelands of 16th-century Germany, Obsopoeus witnessed the birth of a poisonous new culture of bingeing, hazing, peer pressure, and competitive drinking. Alarmed, and inspired by the Roman poet Ovid's Art of Love, he wrote The Art of Drinking (1536), a how-to manual for drinking with pleasure and discrimination. In How to Drink, Michael Fontaine offers the first proper English translation of Obsopoeus' text, rendering his poetry into spirited, contemporary prose and uncorking a forgotten classic that will appeal to drinkers of all kinds and (legal) ages.

The Cult of the Supreme Being was a type of deism invented by Maximilien Robespierre during the French Revolution. Its purpose was to affirm the connections between citizenship, morality, and reason. Intended to replace both Roman Catholicism and its rival, the Cult of Reason, it died with its author in 1794.

Thumbelina is a classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale about a tiny girl no bigger than a thumb snatched from her family by an ugly toad who wants to marry her. Thumbelina escapes, befriending various creatures of the forest, until one day, she meets the king of the flower angels, with whom she finds happiness forever.

Many consider "The Canterville Ghost" the most famous ghost story of all time. It is a parody featuring a dramatic spirit named Sir Simon and an American ambassador named Mr. Hiram B. Otis. Mr. Otis travels to England with his family and moves into a haunted castle. Lord Canterville, the previous owner of the castle, warns Mr. Otis that the ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville has haunted the castle ever since he killed his wife, Eleonore, centuries ago.

King Arthur is probably the most famous and certainly the most legendary medieval king. From the early ninth century through the middle ages, to the Arthurian romances of Victorian times, the tales of this legendary figure have blossomed and multiplied. And in more recent times, there has been a continuous stream of books claiming to have discovered the "facts" about, or to unlock the secret or truth behind, the "once and future king". Broadly speaking, there are two Arthurs.

From about the ninth to fifth centuries BCE, the population of Greece grew unprecedentedly large, expanding from about 800,000 people to as many as 13 million. About a quarter million of these lived in Athens. The average size of urban households during this period grew considerably, a fact that suggests that food was suddenly available in excesses sufficient to keep larger families healthy and alive much more effectively than just a millennium earlier. Bigger families meant bigger armies and larger communities that would eventually grow into the metropolises of Classical Greece.

Behind a hedge of impenetrable thorns stands a castle, wherein lies a beautiful princess cursed to sleep her life away. Can the bold and dashing prince save the young woman, or is her fate sealed?

Ob als scharfer Beobachter, zielstrebiger Spaziergänger, oder als Anekdoten erzählender Flaneur - in diesem Hörbuch nimmt der Autor Fritz Hessel den Hörer mit auf eine Reise in das facettenreiche, sich kolossal zu wandeln beginnende und vor Kontrasten nur so flimmernde Berlin der späten 20er Jahre. Staunend wie ein Kind und sammelnd wie ein Historiker lässt er die verschiedenen Welten und Zeiten dieser einzigartigen europäischen Metropole zusammenfließen ohne dabei grundlos ins Schwärmen zu geraten.

The focus of the book is on Shakespeare's London, how it influenced his drama, and how he represents it on stage. Taking listeners on an imaginative journey through the city, the book moves both chronologically, from beginning to end of Shakespeare's dramatic career, and geographically, traversing London from west to east.

This is a story from the Grimm's Fairy Tales collection.

A hammer no mortal can lift. A flame-haired, fiery storm god. A comic book alien-hero-god who defends humanity. The swastika. Even the name "Thursday" ("Thor's Day"). Despite the virtual disappearance of the indigenous Norse religion and mythology several centuries ago, modern society still regularly encounters the storm god Thor, who continues to be brought back to life in the form of literature and was recently the protagonist in a big-budget Hollywood movie.

An epic saga of love, fate and betrayal. Victoria has chosen career over love, but starts to question this decision when she finds herself working at a remote weather research station on a tiny island off the coast of Norway. In this world of midnight sunshine, the Old Gods still watch the affairs of humanity - one of them has become fixated on Victoria, certain that she is the reincarnation of a woman he fell in love with over a thousand years before.

"The Snow Queen" is one of Hans Christian Andersen’s longest and most popular tales. It’s about Gerda and her friend Kai growing up through many adventures. Exploring the struggle between good and evil, it’s a story of a magic mirror, trolls, sorceresses, and power.

Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution is a landmark of literary history. Conceived not as a dry recounting of facts, but as a personal, vivid, direct, and dramatic encounter with the turbulent times of revolutionary France, it is in fact an extended dramatic monologue in which we meet not only the striking personalities and events of the time, but the equally striking personality and mind of Thomas Carlyle himself.

A billingual version of the classic fairy tale read first in its original English version and then in its French version. A real treat for language learners.