W. F. Howes Ltd

The Canterbury Tales

by Geoffrey Chaucer narrated by Multiple Narrators 

Chaucer's (1340-1400) celebrated work begins at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, England, where a group of pilgrims has assembled on their way to Canterbury. Harry Bailly, the innkeeper, suggests a contest: whoever tells the best tale, "Shall have a supper at our aller cost. Here in the place, sitting by this post. When that we come again from Canterbury."

Chaucer's Middle English has been here updated by Professor Michael Murphy of Brooklyn College, City University of New York. This is not a translation, but rather a modernization of the spelling and pronunciation of The Tales, leaving the grammar, syntax, and vocabulary unchanged.

Thus Chaucer's poetry can be appreciated without the encumbrance of the difficult pronunciations of Middle English. Includes these tales: The Knight's; The Miller's; The Reeve's; The Wife of Bath's; The Friar's; The Clerk's; The Merchant's; The Franklin's; The Pardoner's; The Shipman's; The Prioress's; and The Nun's Priest's.

Great Expectations

by Charles Dickens narrated by Frank Muller

From the moment young Philip Pirrip meets the terrifying escaped convict Abel Magwitch on the lonely marshes, his whole life changes forever. This exciting drama follows Pip's rite of passage through the contrasting worlds of the forge, Satis House and Victorian London. We examine Dicken's own life, his work, and present the alternative ending as it was originally serialised.

Gulliver's Travels

by Jonathan Swift narrated by Norman Dietz

One of the most famous works in English literature, this classic enjoys enduring popularity. For generations, its sharp humor has appealed to adults, and its lively fantasy has charmed children.

Gulliver's Travels relates the adventures encountered by a ship's surgeon, Lemuel Gulliver, on four remarkable voyages. The first is to Lilliput, whose inhabitants are six inches tall. The second is to Brobdingnag, whose inhabitants are 60 feet tall. The third takes Gulliver to the flying island of Laputa. His final voyage is to a land ruled by rational horses called "Houyhnhnms," who spoil forever Gulliver's capacity to live among ordinary mortals.

Through his writings, Jonathan Swift earned fame as one of the world's greatest satirists. While exposing the follies of war, politics, science, philosophy, his native England, and humanity in general, at the same time he keeps us laughing at ourselves and our weaknesses.

Hunchback of Notre Dame

by Victor Hugo narrated by George Guidall

Written in 1831 before Hugo was forced to flee from Louis Napoleon's France. In this novel - perhaps his most popular - Hugo paints a vivid portrait of medieval Paris.

Quasimodo, the one-eyed, hunchbacked refugee; Esmeralda, the dancing gypsy girl, threatened by the gallows; and a world where chaos is in charge - Hugo captures them all in this timeless, almost Gothic, piece of literature.

Robinson Crusoe

by Daniel Defoe narrated by Ron Keith

The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe - published in 1719 - was Defoe's first novel and his best-known work. Loosely based on a true account of a Scottish sailor, Alexander Selkirk, it is a tale of one man's fall from grace, and progress to redemption.

Willful and impatient, young Robinson Crusoe disregards the advice of his family and heads for the open sea. His obduracy eventually leaves him stranded on an uninhabited island somewhere in the Caribbean - the sole survivor of a shipwreck. The account of his life, scratched out with rationed indigo ink on a dwindling supply of paper salvaged from the hull of a wrecked ship, speaks eloquently of the tenacity and ingenuity of the human spirit.

Daniel Defoe was born in London in 1660. Although groomed for the ministry, he would eventually join England's growing class of small tradesman. At the age of 59 Defoe turned to writing fiction. Though often snubbed by the more genteel class, his novels were extremely popular with nearly everyone else. Today, many scholars argue that Defoe is the true father of the English novel.

Treasure Island

by Robert Louis Stevenson narrated by Norman Dietz

If you happen to find a map in a dead buccaneer's sea trunk, you can't very well ignore it, not if you are Jim Hawkins and his friends Dr Livesey, Captain Smollett and Squire Trelawney!

But even with a map, buried treasures are not easy things to come by. At the start of his grand adventure, setting sail on the good ship Hispaniola, the young Hawkins is a hesitant, querulous boy, too easily beguiled by his own fancy. By journey's end he will have faced murder, mutiny, and mayhem - and in the process, become a man.

Narrator Neil Hunt brings to life the characters Robert Louis Stevenson made so memorable: Black Dog, Blind Pew, Billy Bones, George Merry, Israel Hands, and Ben Gunn.