First Mate Shandon receives a mysterious letter asking him to construct a reinforced steamship in Liverpool. As he heads out for Melville Bay and the Arctic labyrinth, a crewman reveals himself to be John Hatteras, and his obsession, the North Pole. The captain is later abandoned by his crew and remains without resources at the coldest spot on earth. How can he find food and navigate the Polar Sea? And what will he find at the top of the world?

In 1866, sightings of a legendary sea monster prompt a daring expedition out of New York City. Professor Pierre Aronnax, his servant Conseil, and whaler Ned Land are among the crew of the United States Navy frigate Abraham Lincoln. Though they are fearless, nothing prepares them for the "creature" itself - the Nautilus - a powerful, destructive submarine years ahead of its time. At the helm of the vessel is the brilliant Captain Nemo, who pulls the men deep into the wonders of the seas and the dark depths of his mind.

A sixteenth-century cryptogram spurs modern geologist Otto Liedenbrock to embark on the most remarkable human quest ever taken. With his nephew and guide, he leads the descent from a dormant Icelandic volcano into the unexplored realm beneath their feet. There, a vast subterranean ocean, prehistoric creatures, and natural phenomena are but a few of the wonders hidden from all but the boldest eyes.

A Signature Performance: Tim Curry, the source of our inspiration, returns – this time, he captures the quirky enthusiasm of this goofily visionary adventure.

When an eccentric Englishman named Phileas Fogg makes a daring wager that he can circle the globe in just eighty days, it’s the beginning of a breathlessly-paced world tour. With his devoted servant Passepartout at his side, Fogg sets off on an adventurous journey filled with amazing encounters and wild mishaps. Pursued all the way by the bumbling Detective Fix, who believes the two travelers are bank robbers on the run, Fogg and Passepartout must use every means of transportation known to 19th-century man - including a hot-air balloon, a locomotive, and an elephant - to win the bet.

Bored with inactivity following the end of the Civil War, the fanatical members of the American Gun Club in Baltimore look for a project to fulfill their passion for rearms. Their distinguished President, Impey Barbicane, proposes an exciting new endeavor - one that will cement their names in history: They will build the largest projectile ever known to man and shoot it at the moon! The bullet will be hollowed to accommodate Barbicane and two bold companions, along with their dog, and they will claim the moon as America's 37th state.

"Call me Ishmael." Thus starts the greatest American novel. Melville said himself that he wanted to write "a mighty book about a mighty theme" and so he did. It is a story of one man's obsessive revenge-journey against the white whale, Moby-Dick, who injured him in an earlier meeting. Woven into the story of the last journey of The Pequod is a mesh of philosophy, rumination, religion, history, and a mass of information about whaling through the ages.

Newbery Award-winner Gary Paulsen's best-known book comes to audio in this breathless, heart-gripping drama about a boy pitted against the wilderness with only a hatchet and a will to live. On his way to visit his recently divorced father in the Canadian mountains, thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is the only survivor when the single-engine plane crashes. His body battered, his clothes in shreds, Brian must now stay alive in the boundless Canadian wilderness.

Widely regarded as the first English novel, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is one of the most popular and influential adventure stories of all time. This classic tale of shipwreck and survival on an uninhabited island was an instant success when first published in 1719, and it has inspired countless imitations.

The story of the wily Robin Hood and his Merry Men has been passed down in oral legend, movies, and even a TV series. This reading of Howard Pyle's 1883 book The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood relates all the joys, woes, and adventures of the thief who "robbed from the rich to give to the poor".

Atlantis: The Antediluvian World was published in 1882 by the Minnesotan author Ignatius L. Donnelly. He argues that all known ancient civilizations were descended from this lost land which once existed in the Atlantic Ocean, opposite the Mediterranean Sea. The author claimed that the description of this island given by Plato is not fable, but veritable history.

In the hands of Sophocles, the master dramatist, the anguished tale of a man fated to kill his father and marry his mother retains its power to shock and move beyond any Freudian reference.

In curiously parallel lives, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr were both orphaned at an early age. Both were brilliant students who attended college - one at Princeton, the other at Columbia - and studied law. Both were young staff officers under General George Washington, and both became war heroes. Politics beckoned them, and each served in the newly formed government of the fledgling nation. Why, then, did these two face each other at dawn in a duel that ended with death for one and opprobrium for the other?

Out of the Silent Planet is the first novel of the Cosmic Trilogy, considered to be C.S. Lewis' chief contribution to the science fiction genre.

A Signature Performance: Kenneth Branagh plays this like a campfire ghost story, told by a haunted, slightly insane Marlow.

A sixteenth-century cryptogram spurs modern geologist Otto Liedenbrock to embark on the most remarkable human quest ever taken. With his nephew and guide, he leads the descent from a dormant Icelandic volcano into the unexplored realm beneath their feet. There, a vast subterranean ocean, prehistoric creatures, and natural phenomena are but a few of the wonders hidden from all but the boldest eyes.

In the midst of examining an ancient Icelandic manuscript, professor and mineralogist Otto Liedenbrock and his nephew Axel make an astonishing discovery.

It was the eye. The dull, sightless, vulture's eye that shredded his final nerve. But the murder was done so carefully, so perfectly, that only one thing could reveal the whereabouts of the body. B. J. Harrison gives a masterful reading of the famous murder that wouldn't keep quiet. This audiobook was the #3 best-selling audiobook in 2008 at the iTunes Music Store!

Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is a realistic yet romantic nautical adventure about a young stowaway on the high seas. One day in 1827, Arthur Gordon Pym escapes his dreary life in New Bedford and hides on the Grampus, where he befriends the captain's son, Augustus. The two boys witness and participate in a dazzling series of adventures, including shipwreck, famine, rescue, and voyages all over the world.

In “The End of the Story” by Clark Ashton Smith, mysterious passion and ardor lead us through forbidden manuscripts, mystical encounters, and matters of the heart. Set in 17th-century France, young law student Christophe Morand discovers the tale of Gerard de Venteillon, a knight seduced by a lamia dwelling in the ruins of Chateau des Faussesflammes near Perigon. Will Morand share his fate? The choice between heart and the abbot’s counsel becomes pivotal, and the enigmatic woman continues to tempt.

Herman Melville is one of the greatest figures in literary history. His classic Moby Dick is generally considered the finest novel ever written by an American. Yet in Melville’s day, Typee was a far more popular book. Largely autobiographical, this classic adventure story is set in the South Seas, where a runaway sailor is captured by the Typees. Described as “a fierce and unrelenting tribe of savages," the islanders have no intention of letting their captive go.

Presented is a two-volume collection of Wells' most celebrated classics of science-fiction and horror: The Time Machine and The Island of Doctor Moreau. This audio-enhanced version - with sound effects and musical soundtrack - combines Wells' groundbreaking exploration of time travel with his "youthful blasphemy" tale of animal and human hybrids.

Treasure Island is a tale of pirates, treasure, and shipwreck. When young Jim Hawkins finds a packet in Captain Flint's sea chest, he could not know that the map inside it would lead him to unimaginable treasure. Shipping as cabin boy on the Hispaniola, he sails with Squire Trelawney, Captain Smollett, Dr. Livesey, the sinister Long John Silver and a frightening crew to Treasure Island. There, mutiny, murder and mayhem lead to a thrilling climax.

Steven Jones, an entertainment producer from Chicago, journeys to London in search of new acts. There, he discovers the strange and disturbing wax museum of Rodgers and his inscrutable associate Orabona. Is the mad artist able to conjure up the world's most horrifying waxen effigies through his occult inspirations, or is there a darker secret lurking behind the wax and paint?

One of the great adventure novels of our language creates a most engaging central character, Nostromo. A picturesque man of action and popular hero, Nostromo lives to be "well-spoken of" by the citizens of Costaguana, the mythical South American banana republic where the story takes place. Around this figure, Conrad spins a story of revolution, politics, and racial conflict as complex as Nostromo, the man whose greatest enemy is himself.

Ijon Tichy, Lem's Candide of the Cosmos, encounters bizarre civilizations and creatures in space that serve to satirize science, the rational mind, theology, and other icons of human pride.

The warning was inscribed on the entrance of the hidden tomb, forgotten for millennia in the sands of mystic Egypt. Then the archaeologists and grave robbers came in search of the fabled Jewel of Seven Stars, which they found clutched in the hand of the mummy. Few heeded the ancient warning, until all who came in contact with the Jewel began to die in a mysterious and violent way, with the marks of a strangler around their neck.

Word goes among the crew of the Pole Star that the captain is haunted by demons. And after the days turn into weeks in the frigid Arctic Ocean, stories begin to circulate of ghosts and midnight hauntings.

Italo Calvino's beloved cosmicomics cross planets and traverse galaxies, speed up time or slow it down to the particles of an instant. Through the eyes of an ageless guide named Qfwfq, Calvino explores natural phenomena and tells the story of the origins of the universe. Poignant, fantastical, and wise, these 34 dazzling stories - collected here in one definitive anthology - relate complex scientific and mathematical concepts to our everyday world.

H.P. Lovecraft never found fame during his lifetime and died in 1937 in relative obscurity. But in the decades that followed his death, his importance as a unique and original visionary in the genre of science fantasy and 'weird fiction' has grown monumentally, so that even talents such as author Stephen King and film-maker John Carpenter have described him as a prime influence upon their creative lives. Here, then, is a selection of his stories.