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  A Hero of Our Time

  Mikhail Lermontov

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  Grigori Aleksandrovich Pechorin is an enigma: arrogant, cocky, melancholic, brave, cynic, romantic, loner, socialite, soldier, free soul, and yet, victim of the world, he eludes definition and remains a mystery to those who know him. Just who is he? And what does he hope to achieve? Evolving from first person to third person, and then into a diary, A Hero of Our Time takes on a variety of forms to interrogate Pechorin’s cryptic character and his unusual philosophy, providing breathtaking descriptions of the Caucasus along the way. The novel has been hailed as an influence on such writers as Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov, and is a striking take on Lord Byron’s ‘superfluous man’; it harks back to the teaching of Machiavelli, while anticipating the future work of Nietzsche.

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  The Last Trail

  Zane Grey

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  Two frontiersmen venture into the unknown wilderness to save a kidnapped woman in this historical novel by “the greatest Western writer of all time” (Jackson Cain, author of Hellbreak Country).In the late eighteenth century, Wheeling, West Virginia, was an untamed land where brave settlers relied on the protection of a lonely outpost known as Fort Henry. But when a band of renegades and Ohio Valley Indians kidnap a woman from the fort, justice rests on the shoulders of two men: Jonathan Zane and Lewis Wetzel. As these lone outlaw hunters pursue the trail into wild and lawless territory, they vow it will be their last venture—knowing the end of the trail may also be the end of their lives. Zane Grey’s The Last Trail completes a trilogy of western adventure novels based on the real lives of his ancestors. Set in the Ohio River Valley and drawn in part from recovered family journals, the series—which also includes Betty Zane and The Spirit of the Border—depicts the gritty reality of the late eighteenth-century American frontier

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  Lord Jim

  Joseph Conrad

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  Lord Jim tells the story of a young, idealistic Englishman-"as unflinching as a hero in a book"-who is disgraced by a single act of cowardice while serving as an officer on the Patna, a merchant-ship sailing from an eastern port. His life is ruined: an isolated scandal has assumed horrifying proportions. But then he is befriended by an older man named Marlow who helps to establish him in exotic Patusan, a remote Malay settlement where his courage is put to the test once more. Lord Jim is about courage and cowardice, self-knowledge and personal growth. It is one of the most profound and rewarding psychological novels in English. Set in the context of social change and colonial expansion in late Victorian England, it embodies in Jim the values and turmoil of a fading empire.

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  Great Expectations

  Charles Dickens

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  While visiting his parents gravesite in the marshy mists of a village graveyard, Pip, a young orphan living with his older sister, encounters a shivering, limping convict on the run. In spite of his fear of the man, Pip befriends the convict and gives aid, an act that spells considerable consequences for Pip later in life. Fate intervenes and Pip is sent to the household of Miss Havisham, a wealthy and eccentric spinster. Pip shares the household with Miss Havisham and her beautiful, but cold, adopted daughter Estella. Estella seizes every opportunity to tempt and spurn the admiring Pip. Undaunted, Pip tries to make a gentleman of himself and win the heart of Estella by using a trust fund he believes has been established for him by Miss Havisham. A word about the author: After completing GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Dickens had the work critiqued by his friend and novelist Edward Bulwer Lytton. Lytton objected strongly to the original 'unacceptable' ending, so Dickens changed it to its current 'more acceptable' form. In this reading, you will hear both endings. The 'acceptable' ending is first and the original ending is presented second.

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  Dracula

  Bram Stoker

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  Bram Stoker was an Irish author and Dracula is his most famous book. Dracula was published in 1897. It was not the first vampire novel. For example, it draws on Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu, who at one time was Stoker's employer in Dublin. But Dracula is without doubt the most famous vampire novel. It is narrated here by Tony Walker, producer and narrator of The Classic Ghost Stories Podcast.

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  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

  Washington Irving

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  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is among the earliest examples of American fiction with enduring popularity, especially during the Halloween season. Very understandable indeed, with its amazingly chilling and atmospheric ambiance. The story is set in 1790 in the countryside around the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town (New York), in a secluded glen called Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow is renowned for its ghosts and the haunting atmosphere that pervades the imaginations of its inhabitants and visitors. The most infamous creature in the Hollow is the Headless Horseman, said to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper that had his head shot off by a stray cannonball during "some nameless battle" of the American Revolutionary War, and who "rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head". The Legend relates the tale of Ichabod Crane, a lean, lanky and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut.

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