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  Sarrasine

  Honoré de Balzac

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  "Sarrasine" (1830) is a novella by Honoré de Balzac, part of his Comédie Humaine.The stage is set around midnight during a ball, the narrator is sitting at a window. There is an unknown old man around the house, whom the family was oddly devoted to, and who frightened and intrigued the partygoers.When the man sits next to the narrator's guest, Beatrix Rochefide, she touches him, and the narrator rushes her out of the room. The narrator knows who the man is and says he will tell her his story the next evening. Then he portrays Ernest-Jean Sarrasine, a passionate, artistic boy, who after having trouble in school became a prodigy of the sculptor Bouchardon.Sarrasine, a talented young man, after one of his sculptures wins a competition, heads to Rome, where he sees a theatre performance featuring Zambinella. He falls in love with her, going to all of her performances and creating a clay mold of her. The old man is not Sarrasine. Who is he?

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  Castle Warlock

  George MacDonald

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  A novel of a son’s worldly and spiritual inheritance set in the majestic Scottish Highlands—by the nineteenth-century British author of Mary Marston.   Thematically linked to Mary Marston which preceded it, MacDonald here poignantly depicts the father-son relationship as he had earlier that of father and daughter. MacDonald’s storytelling power again returns to the highlands of Scotland, setting his narrative in the hills south of Huntly. We encounter vivid descriptions of that wild terrain, including snowstorms, summer joys, harvests, along with MacDonald’s trademark mysteries, inheritances, treasures, and, of course, romance. Castle Warlock is one of the most thoroughly Scottish of MacDonald's novels, and is a favorite with many for its spiritual, relational, and natural splendor.   Castle Warlock is unique among MacDonald’s titles, being first published in America in 1881, six months in advance of its British counterpart of 1882. This new edition by MacDonald biographer Michael Phillips streamlines the occasionally ponderous Victorian narrative style and updates the thick Doric brogue into readable English.

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  Swann's Way

  Marcel Proust

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  Swann’s Way forms the first part of Marcel Proust’s magnificent autobiographical cycle Remembrance of Things Past. Here, Proust’s vision, psychological understanding and vivid powers of description combine to create one of the most poetic and magical works in all literature. For lovers of the original text there are new delights to be found in this audiobook version, while those discovering the work for the first time may be surprised to find it so accessible.

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  The Ministry of Fear

  Graham Greene

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  In London during the Blitz, an amnesiac must outwit a twisted Nazi plot in this “master thriller” of espionage, murder, and deception (Time).   On a peaceful Sunday afternoon, Arthur Rowe comes upon a charity fete in the gardens of a Cambridgeshire vicarage where he wins a game of chance. If only this were an ordinary day. Britain is under threat by Germany, and the air raid sirens that bring the bazaar to a halt expose Rowe as no ordinary man. Recently released from a psychiatric prison for the mercy killing of his wife, he is burdened by guilt, and now, in possession of a seemingly innocuous prize, on the run from a nest of Nazi spies who want him dead.   Pursued on a dark odyssey through the bombed-out streets of London, he becomes enmeshed in a tangle of secrets that reach into the dark recesses of his own forgotten past. And there isn’t a soul he can trust, not even himself. Because Arthur Rowe doesn’t even know who he really is.   “A storyteller of genius,” Graham Greene composed his serpentine mystery of authentic wartime espionage—and one the author’s personal favorites—while working for MI6 (Evelyn Waugh). But The Ministry of Fear “is more than a mere thriller . . . [it’s a] hypnotic moonstone of a novel” (The New York Times).

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  A Daughter of Albion

  Anton Chekhov

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  Albion's Daughter is a story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. Written in 1883, first published in 1883 in the magazine "Oskolki" No. 33 for August 13, signed by A. Chekhonte. 'A Daughter of Albion' is a short story hitting out at the free-spirited and broad-minded British of the nineteenth century. The word 'Albion' indicates someone belonging to Great Britain or England. In this story penned by Anton Chekhov, one of the greatest short story writers of the nineteenth century, a British governess is ridiculed by her cynical employer, who is infatuated with her. Her married employer is in a sexual relationship with her despite having a wife and children. He loves spending time with this free-spirited and haughty governess who looks down upon the Russian's backwardness. Because of her, he has taken to fishing all day without caring for his job, family, or friends. Chekhov uses subtle and brazen sexual innuendos to bring out the feelings Gryabov, the landowner, has for Fyce, the British governess.

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  The Valley of Fear

  Arthur Conan Doyle

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  Although the least well known of the four Sherlock Holmes novels, "The Valley of Fear" is, nevertheless fascinating, not only for the excellence of the initial mystery of the disfigured corpse discovered in the moated manor house but also for the only other appearance in all the stories of Professor Moriarty (albeit, always in the shadows).  
  Published in 1914 Conan Doyle is revisiting the malevolent Professor and placing the events prior to the notorious encounter between the famous detective and his nemesis. Indeed  "The Valley of Fear” ends with a tantalising hint of the trials that lay ahead for Sherlock Holmes. 
  Head Stories Audio presents "The Valley of Fear", narrated by Simon Hester. With original music.

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