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  As You Like It (Argo Classics)

  William Shakespeare

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  William Collins Books and Decca Records are proud to present ARGO Classics, a historic catalogue of classic prose and verse read by some of the world’s most renowned voices. Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly remastered stories are now available to download for the first time. 
  ‘The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.’ 
  Forced into exile in the Forest of Arden, lovers Rosalind and Orlando become entangled in a beguiling game of love, lust and mistaken identity. 
  Rosalind and her cousin escape into the forest and find Orlando, Rosalind's love. Disguised as a boy shepherd, Rosalind has Orlando woo her under the guise of "curing" him of his love for Rosalind. Rosalind reveals she is a girl and marries Orlando during a group wedding at the end of the play. 
  All of the Shakespeare plays within the ARGO Classics catalogue are performed by the Marlowe Dramatic Society and Professional Players. The Marlowe was founded in 1907 with a mission to focus on effective delivery of verse, respect the integrity of texts, and rescue neglected plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries and the less performed plays of Shakespeare himself. The Marlowe has performed annually at Cambridge Arts Theatre since its opening in 1936 and continues to produce some of the finest actors of their generations. 
  Thurston Dart, Professor of Music at London University and a Fellow of Jesus College Cambridge, directed the music for this production. 
  The full cast includes: John Barton; Tony Church; Peter Bingham; Anthony Jacobs; John Arnott; David Buck; Tony White; David Gibson; Denys Robertson; John Wilders; Gary Watson; Julian Pettifer; John Bird; George Rylands; Christine Baker; Wendy Gifford; Irene Worth; Mary Fenton.

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  The Turn of the Screw

  Henry James

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  Perhaps the most brilliantly successful ghost story ever written, The Turn of the Screw creates a terrifyingly believable impression of innocent children so corrupted by evil that they remain deceptive pictures of innocent beauty. Their governess must struggle alone to confront and exorcise the demons which she believes possess their souls...

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  Ivan Turgenev - A Short Story...

  Ivan Turgenev

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  Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was born on 9th November 1818 in Oryol, Russia to parents from the nobility.  He and his two brothers were raised by their mother on the family estate.  Surrounded by foreign governesses he became fluent in French, German, and English.  Their father spent little time with them and this undoubtedly had an effect on him and his brothers.  When he was nine the family moved to Moscow to give their children a proper education. 
   
  Turgenev studied for a year at the University of Moscow and then at the University of St Petersburg to study Classics, Russian literature, and philology.  During that time his father died from kidney stone disease.  In 1838 Turgenev studied philosophy and history at the University of Berlin for 3 years before returning to St Petersburg for his master's. 
   
  He started his career with the Russian Civil Service and it was only in 1852 that he made his name with his short story collection, ‘A Sportsman's Sketches’, based on his observations of peasant life and nature. 
   
  That same year he wrote an obituary for Nikolai Gogol: "Gogol is dead!... What Russian heart is not shaken by those three words?... He is gone, that man whom we now have the right (the bitter right, given to us by death) to call great."  The St Petersburg censor banned publication but the Moscow censor allowed it.  He was dismissed but Turgenev was held responsible and imprisoned for a month, and then exiled to his country estate. 
   
  Along with many other Russian intellectuals Turgenev left and settled in Paris in 1854.  During this period he wrote his finest stories and four novels. 
   
  Alexander II ascended the Russian throne in 1855, and the political climate became more relaxed, Turgenev returned home. 
   
  ‘Fathers and Sons’, Turgenev's most famous and enduring novel, appeared in 1862. Its leading character is considered the first ‘Bolshevik’ in Russian literature. But the hostile reaction prompted Turgenev's decision to again leave Russia. 
   
  His health declined during his later years. In January 1883, an aggressive malignant tumor was removed but by then it had metastasized in his upper spinal cord, causing him intense pain in his final few months of life. 
   
  Ivan Turgenev died on 3rd September 1883 of a spinal abscess, a complication of the metastatic liposarcoma, in his house near Paris.  He was buried in St Petersburg. 
   
  1 - Ivan Turgenev - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  2 - A Strange Story by Ivan Turgenev 
  3 - Mumu by Ivan Turgenev 
  4 - The District Doctor by Ivan Turgenev 
  5 - The Jew by Ivan Turgenev 
  6 - The Rendezvous by Ivan Turgenev 
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  1 - Leonid Andreyev - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  2 - Silence by Leonid Nikolaevich Andreyev 
  3 - Lazarus by Leonid Andreyev 
  4 - The City by Leonid Andreyev 
  5 - The Friend by Leonoid Andreyev 
  6 - The Lie by Leonid Andreyev 
  7 - The Marseillaise by Leonid Andreyev

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  Heart of Darkness (Unabridged)

  Joseph Conrad

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  In fading light on the Thames Estuary near London, as Charles Marlow and his companions relax on deck, waiting for the turn of the tide, he tells of the time he turned 'freshwater sailor' on the River Congo. His perilous journey upriver in a little steamboat with a band of white colonialists and a group of cannibals takes him closer to the coveted ivory, closer to Kurtz the rogue agent, closer to certain unspeakable rites and the heart of darkness. Here we encounter the darkness of the jungle; the darkness of forced labour, cruelty, and death; and that darkness that exists in the 'civilized' human heart. Serialised in three parts in 1899, this book was first published in 1902. Joseph Conrad, considered one of greatest novelists in the English language, was born in Poland in 1857, only learning to speak the language fluently in his 20s and always with a strong Polish accent. Frequently, he touches on themes connected with the sea and colonialism, for he had travelled the world as a merchant seaman. He had even skippered a steamboat called Roi des Belges in King Leopold II's private fiefdom of the Congo; these experiences and encounters find a home in this most disturbing and claustrophobic of stories.

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  Morton Hall (Unabridged)

  Elizabeth Gaskell

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  "Morton Hall" (1853) is a story written by Elizabeth Gaskell, one of the leading representatives of British literature of the Victorian era. The book weaves together many different elements from the description of ancient houses and noble lineages to the commemoration of historical events, all with the background of childhood memories of the protagonists. This text has the ability to offer a wide reflection on social and Political Affairs of England: Elizabeth Gaskell traces back several vicissitudes until they reach the intestine foiled attack on King James I, Cromwell's Protectorate, the so-called witch hunt, until you get to touch the social and cultural revolution produced by colonial politics .In this short-story there is everything : the role of women in society and in the process of formation of children, ways considered more suited to its educator function, until detailed depictions of torture, humor, mental illness often found themselves inside the England of that time. These reasons they do fall under the genre of tales of thrill, with continuous references to ghosts, witches and superstition of the demonic element....

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  The Roman Road

  Kenneth Grahame

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  All roads lead to Rome. The young boy telling this story cannot quite comprehend this assertion - but of one road, he is certain it is true. The Knights' Road, as he and his friends call it. A road without hedges or ditches, a road that heads straight over the downs with a purpose. One day he will set off to Rome along this road... but for the moment his attention is arrested by an artist he meets on the Knights' Road. An artist who seems to know many strange and wonderful things...

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