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Wives and Daughters
- Narrated by: Patience Tomlinson
- Length: 27 hrs and 32 mins
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Publisher's summary
When her father remarries, the honest, innocent Molly Gibson suddenly finds herself with a new stepsister, Cynthia, who is beautiful, worldly and impetuous. This would be more than enough to deal with, but the new wife is the deeply snobbish (and darkly secretive) Hyacinth. Thwarted love, scheming ambition and small-town gossip underlie the warmth, irony and brilliant social observation which link the relationships and the inevitable conflicts as profound change comes to rural England.
The most mature and rewarding of her novels, Wives and Daughters places Elizabeth Gaskell in the first rank of English authors.
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- Narrated by: Harriet Stevens
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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As Jane Austen's first completed novel that was submitted to be published, Northanger Abbey is a miraculously weaved tale of love, society, and deception, themes that would come to be synonymous in literature with Austen's name. The young Catherine Morland receives a fantastic opportunity to explore the city of Bath with some family friends, and while there, she experiences a level of mental and emotional growth that was as yet unparalleled in her life.
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Great Listening Experience
- By Robert Jennings on 05-18-16
By: Jane Austen
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Howards End
- By: E. M. Forster
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Howards End is a beautifully subtle tale of two very different families brought together by an unusual event. The Schlegels are intellectuals, devotees of art and literature. The Wilcoxes are practical and materialistic, leading lives of "telegrams and anger". When the elder Mrs. Wilcox dies and her family discovers she has left their country home - Howards End - to one of the Schlegel sisters, a crisis between the two families is precipitated that takes years to resolve.
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Fantastic Narration in Delightful Story
- By Wren on 05-05-18
By: E. M. Forster
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Dombey and Son
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 36 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In this carefully crafted novel, Dickens reveals the complexity of London society in the enterprising 1840s as he takes the listener into the business firm and home of one of its most representative patriarchs, Paul Dombey.
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Perfect pair
- By Philip on 03-25-08
By: Charles Dickens
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Agnes Grey
- By: Anne Brontë
- Narrated by: Emilia Fox
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Having lost the family savings on risky investments, Richard Grey removes himself from family life and suffers a bout of depression. Feeling helpless and frustrated, his youngest daughter, Agnes, applies for a job as a governess to the children of a wealthy, upper-class, English family. Ecstatic at the thought that she has finally gained control and freedom over her own life, Agnes arrives at the Bloomfield mansion armed with confidence and purpose.
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Loved it
- By Kerry on 05-22-10
By: Anne Brontë
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Daisy Miller
- By: Henry James
- Narrated by: Ellie Kendrick
- Length: 3 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Travelling in Europe with her family, Daisy Miller, an exquisitely beautiful young American woman, presents her fellow countryman Winterbourne with a dilemma he cannot resolve. Is she deliberately flouting social convention in the outspoken way she talks and acts, or is she simply ignorant of those conventions? When she strikes up an intimate friendship with an urbane young Italian, her flat refusal to observe the codes of respectable behaviour leave her perilously exposed.
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loved the story
- By Dominick Garcez on 02-18-23
By: Henry James
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Agnes Grey
- By: Anne Bronte
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Written when women---and workers generally---had few rights in England, Agnes Grey exposes the brutal inequities of the rigid class system in mid-19th-century Britain. Agnes comes from a respectable middle-class family, but their financial reverses have forced her to seek work as a governess.
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Make.it.stop.
- By Wayne on 03-18-22
By: Anne Bronte
What listeners say about Wives and Daughters
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- C&L Yasutake
- 05-05-15
Lovely Story
I really enjoyed the story. The reader had a great range for all the men and women's voices. I was less than enthused with her Lady Comner and Dr. Gibson. I thought the former's speech impediment went in and out and the latter's Scottish brogue was too faint for American ears. All in all beautifully read and acted. I especially enjoyed Squire Hamily of Hamily. Very well realized. Lots of passion.
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- Denise H.
- 10-13-16
Wonderful Story
Love it and couldn't wait each night to listen! Better than watching the movie. The great detail was wonderful!
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- Diamonds&Pearls
- 04-22-21
Excellent Narration
Patience Tomlinson superbly read this book. Sometimes I wondered that it wasn’t more than one person reading. It couldn’t have been more delightful to listen.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Beth
- 08-29-16
Loved
Sad to hear she died before she finished the book but it was magnificent book
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- Mimi Routh
- 03-30-15
A Masterpiece - I LOVE THIS BOOK!
Patience Tomlinson is as fine a narrator as Juliet Stevenson or Davina Porter ever thought of being. I don't know why her talents are being wasted on mediocre chapter books. Except for a few works on history, she is kept working reading ephemeral junk.In this wonderful novel, she sings in French and replicates a couple dozen voices of both sexes and all ages and a range of social ranks and geographical origins. For one of them, it sounds like she was holding her nose! For the high-ranking lady, she takes on a twirpy mispronunciation of ordinary words. She is a howling old man whose son has died. She is a weeping toddler who fell down an incline. She brings the story to life! I'm not a Brit, but I loved and appreciated every bit of it.
And this novel must surely be Ms. Gaskell's masterpiece. Yes, it's about bonnets and petticoats and who is marriagable and how much money they have. It's about sipping tea in drawing rooms, leaving calling cards, and the seeming silliness of early 1800's England that we know from other novelists. It is also about the finest details of conversation, putting people at their ease, smoothing things over, twisting the truth, running guilt trips on others, calling attention to oneself -- in short, all the same features of "social intercourse" that challenge us today. Last week I was bullied, demeaned and contradicted in a church knitting group, my hometown called the armpit of the country and all as sweetly as could be. Never mind that I can knit circles around the others, how do I attain peace and possibly put this nasty woman in her place without making the other sweet Christian ladies uncomfortable? It's a puzzlement! And the same things were going on two centuries ago with huge subtlety.
Gaskell gives us a sweet and bright heroine with a widowed physician father who is also bright and loving. She gives us some interesting people in the nearby town -- two families in large houses and quite a few struggling gentility. Then the physician remarries. The new step-mother has a daughter of her own, also a teen-ager and very beautiful and also loving. But the new step-mother must be one of the most irritating, one of the nastiest women in all literature. A second listen only points up how masterfully Gaskell handles this character. I wanted to say, "Oh, shut up!" And Gaskell uses this character's blathering to build suspense. We want to say enough of all that, what is going on with . . . ?
There are love stories and weddings in the book. Gaskell points up the difference between being physically attractive -- slim and well-dressed, nice on the surface -- and being truly kind, dependable, hard-working and intelligent. Our heroine is very bright, curious and caring. She doesn't play dumb, either. This wins her the prize in the end.
I LOVE THIS BOOK!
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11 people found this helpful
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- Ellen South
- 10-12-16
New author to me
I thought this book was fantastic, I'd never heard of the author but she's certainly as brilliant as Dickens, Austen or Brontes, if not more. Her character drawings are SO good, the story line and emotional content of story are completely absorbing. When I first started listening I thought the narrator might be a bit hard to listen to, but it's because she was speaking in the voice of a small child... in fact not only did I quickly get used to that understanding but her voices proved to be a big part of how good the book is. Highly recommend especially for women.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Erica B Meinkoth
- 11-02-18
Sooooo good
Patience Tomlinson’s performance was excellent. The sample doesn’t give her abilities justice. E. Gaskell was an amazing talent for her time. Her characters are so real and perfectly imperfect. She masters many personalities and their relationships with one another so well.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Bibliophile
- 03-25-18
times gone by
this is a wonderful book. it Really transports you back too gone by times. the Reader also does a wonderful job. her voice is soothing & calming
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- Ecko Kamillion
- 05-24-20
as good as the tv series
I was surprised how closely the book followed the tv series, which I enjoy greatly.
I was MORE surprised to find that the author had died before finishing the last chapter. The attached review of the notes and intended ending was enough, but said to miss the authors own words at the end of the journey.
I am becoming a serious fan of this author!
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- JB
- 03-14-19
20 Characters, 4.5 Voices
Sorry to say that Ms. Tomlinson can only manage four voices for this broad cavalcade of characters: the whining cartoon mouse, a not quite Scottish horse, the blustery pachaderm, and her own voice in a couple half shades of gray. She also has no sense of tempo, reading at the same jackhammer pace regardless of what's happening in the story. It's to the point of inducincing a bug-eyed hypnosis if you loosen your grip on the story in the slightest. I was worn out after a couple of hours. (I just finished David Copperfield - 35 hrs - so I love investing time in good performances.) This is extremely difficult.
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1 person found this helpful