Showing results by narrator "Charlton Griffin" in All Categories

Here in one recording is every Sherlock Holmes story ever written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally appearing in serial form, these famous stories are here presented in the order in which they were first published beginning in 1887. Included in this definitive, award-winning collection are four novels and 56 short stories, a total of 60 titles. The 56 short stories are aggregated into five named collections, just as they were originally published in book form.

Here in a single volume is the entire, unabridged recording of Gibbon's masterpiece. Beginning in the second century A.D. at the apex of the Pax Romana, Gibbon traces the arc of decline and complete destruction through the centuries across Europe and the Mediterranean. It is a thrilling and cautionary tale of splendor and ruin, of faith and hubris, and of civilization and barbarism. Follow along as Christianity overcomes paganism... before itself coming under intense pressure from Islam.

The Iliad is one of the most enduring creations of Western Civilization and was originally written to be recited or chanted to the accompaniment of various instruments. Properly performed, this work today is just as meaningful, just as powerful, and just as entertaining as it was in the ninth century BC, and it casts its spell upon modern listeners with the same raw intensity as it did upon the people of ancient times.

Historians universally agree that Thucydides was the greatest historian who has ever lived, and that his story of the Peloponnesian conflict is a marvel of forensic science and fine literature. That such a triumph of intellectual accomplishment was created at the end of the fifth century B.C. in Greece is, perhaps, not so surprising, given the number of original geniuses we find in that period. But that such an historical work would also be simultaneously acknowledged as a work of great literature and a penetrating ethical evaluation of humanity is one of the miracles of ancient history.

Plutarch (c. AD 46-AD 120) was born to a prominent family in the small Greek town of Chaeronea, about 20 miles east of Delphi in the region known as Boeotia. His best known work is the Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues and vices. The surviving lives contain 23 pairs, each with one Greek life and one Roman life as well as four unpaired single lives.

First appearing in print in 1890, the character of Sherlock Holmes has now become synonymous worldwide with the concept of a super sleuth. His creator, Conan Doyle, imbued his detective hero with intellectual power, acute observational abilities, a penchant for deductive reasoning and a highly educated use of forensic skills. Indeed, Doyle created the first fictional private detective who used what we now recognize as modern scientific investigative techniques.

The sonnets are a collection numbering 154 poems dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty, and mortality. They were probably written over a long period of Shakespeare's life up until 1609, when they were first printed. The first 17 poems, traditionally referred to as the "procreation sonnets", are addressed to a young man urging him to marry and have children in order to immortalize his beauty by passing it on to his descendants.

Beginning in Ionia in 498 BC with the burning of the Lydian capital, Sardis, the story of Lars Turms sweeps across the Mediterranean to Delphi, Athens, then Sicily, before finally ending in Rome and ancient Etruria. Along the way, we encounter Greek warriors and pirates, Carthaginian merchants and princes, strange priests and priestesses, and trading centers, great and small. It is a fascinating glimpse of a world on the verge of wrenching change. Few cultures will survive unscathed.

Dante's Divine Comedy is considered to be not only the most important epic poem in Italian literature, but also one of the greatest poems ever written. It consists of 100 cantos, and (after an introductory canto) they are divided into three sections. Each section is 33 cantos in length, and they describe how Dante and a guide travel through Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.

The Book of Psalms is a book in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles consisting of 150 poems originally written to be chanted or sung and accompanied by musical instruments. In fact, the word "psalm" comes from the Greek word "psalmoi", meaning "songs sung to a harp". In content they express virtually the entire range of the Jewish religious experience and faith.

The Aeneid represents one of the greatest cultural and artistic achievements of Western Civilization. Within the brooding and melancholy atmosphere of Virgil's pious masterpiece lies the mythic story of Aeneas and his flight from burning Troy, taking with him across the Mediterranean the survivors of the Greek onslaught. Aeneas, after many travails and adventures, including a love affair with Dido Queen of Carthage and a visit to the underworld to see his father, ends up in Italy.

Don Quixote is widely considered to be the first modern novel. As a classic of Western literature, it is regarded by scholars worldwide to be one of the finest works of fiction ever written, and a magnificent product of the Spanish Golden Age of literature. Cervantes’ influence on the Spanish language has been so great that his work is often called “la lengua de Cervantes.” The work was written in two separate volumes, both of which are contained in this production. It introduces the character of Don Quixote de la Mancha, a hero who carries his enthusiasm and self-deception to unintentional and comic ends.

Millions of people have thrilled to the adventure of young Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver since the publication of Treasure Island in 1883. It has been dramatized countless times since its appearance. Treasure maps marked with an X, schooners, the Black Spot, tropical islands, and peglegged sailors with parrots on their shoulders: All these stereotypes of the buccaneer tale were the invention of R. L. Stevenson. But make no mistake about it...this novel is a masterpiece of plot development, character study, and sheer writing skill.

Somerset Maugham set out on an extraordinary trip in September of 1922. He would remain abroad for nine months and end up traveling by canoe, riverboat, rickshaw and mule from Rangoon to Mandalay in Upper Burma, down through Thailand to Bangkok, then to Phnom Penh and across the jungle by river to Angkor Wat. From there he went down river to Saigon, then by ship to Hue and Haiphong. He ends the audiobook with an anecdotal story of his fellow passengers while on shipboard to Haiphong.

Arthur Conan Doyle never wasted time in getting his stories moving. His plots are always direct and refreshingly lucid, and the narrative has a velocity that sweeps you along right to the end. This was no doubt a large part of his immense worldwide success. Not surprisingly, each time he tried to end the series, his fans would howl in protest. But, as he says in the preface to his last collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, all good things must come to an end.

The central core of the stories concerns a Persian king and his new bride. The king has a brother who is a vizier in faraway Samarcand, and he invites him to come to the palace for a visit. Just before his departure, the vizier is shocked to discover his wife's infidelity. Enraged, he kills her. Full of pain and grief, the vizier continues on to the court of his brother, the king. But, once arrived at his brother's palace, the vizier soon discovers the king's wife is also involved in an even more flagrant infidelity.

Unquestionably, Herodotus has left mankind one of the world's greatest works of literature. The Persian Wars is part history, part geography, part anthropology...and completely entertaining. It possesses a charm that is legendary. But, over and above this, Herodotus has succeeded for all time in brilliantly expressing the conflict between the ideal of the free man defending his liberty within a state based on the rule of law, and that of the despot who bases his rule on brute force and whose subjects are considered slaves.

First published in 1719 in London, the first edition of Robinson Crusoe gave credit to the work's fictional protagonist, Robinson Crusoe, as its actual author instead of Daniel Defoe. This led many readers to believe Robinson Crusoe was a real person and the book a true account.

Animal Farm is an allegorical satire of the events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917, and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. Orwell described the book as a satirical tale against Stalin and went on to say that it was the first book in which he tried “to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole”. All of the leading figures involved in this period are parodied as various animals.

Along with Virgil, Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) was the greatest poet produced by Rome, and in many ways his work has had arguably an even greater impact. His brilliant expression and astonishing acumen continue to amaze readers today, either in their original Latin or in innumerable worldwide translations. Shakespeare's debt to Horace is incalculable, and it is difficult to read his Sonnets today without immediately being reminded of the famous Odes.