Showing results by narrator "Robin Field" in All Categories

In the early spring of 1845, Henry David Thoreau built and lived in a cabin near the shore of Walden Pond in rural Massachusetts. For the next two years, he enacted his own Transcendentalist experiment, living a simple life based on self-reliance, individualism, and harmony with nature. The journal he kept at that time evolved into his masterwork, Walden, an eloquent expression of a uniquely American philosophy.

Once upon a time there were two princes who were twins... begins Charles Kingsley in his 1856 rendering of Greek mythological heroes for children. Featuring the many exploits of Perseus, Jason and the Argonauts, and Theseus, this timeless collection of myths is a rich tapestry of adventure celebrated in early Greek lore. Kingsley’s Heroes is a classic book that will please listeners of all ages.

First published in 1873, The Gilded Age is both a biting satire and a revealing portrait of post-Civil War America - an age of corruption when crooked land speculators, ruthless bankers, and dishonest politicians voraciously took advantage of the nation's peacetime optimism. With his characteristic wit and perception, Mark Twain and his collaborator, Charles Dudley Warner, attack the greed, lust, and naiveté of their own time in a work that endures as a valuable social document and one of America's most important satirical novels.

Pierre Glendinning is the 19-year-old heir to the manor at Saddle Meadows in upstate New York. Engaged to the blonde Lucy Tartan in a match approved by his domineering mother, Pierre encounters the dark and mysterious Isabel Banford, who claims to be his half sister, the illegitimate and orphaned child of his father and a European refugee. Driven by his magnetic attraction to Isabel, Pierre devises a remarkable scheme to preserve his father's name, spare his mother's grief, and give Isabel her share of the estate.

When a jealous Zeus discovers that the compassionate Titan, Prometheus, has introduced the gift of fire to liberate mere mortals from oppression and servitude, he has Prometheus bound to a rocky prison in the Scythian desert, where the god discloses the reason for his punishment.

First published by brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm in 1812 as a collection of retold Germanic folk stories, this collection of such well-known fairytales as Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty transports listeners to a realm where “Once upon a time” often ends up “happily ever after”…and where giants, princesses, kings and fairies pursue power, find true love, have all sorts of magical adventures — and in the process reveal multi-faceted truths about human nature.

Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology, published in three parts from 1794, was a best seller in America, where it caused a short-lived deistic revival. Promoting a creator-God while advocating reason in the place of revelation, Paine’s controversial pamphlet caused his native British audience, fearing the results of the French Revolution, to receive it with more hostility than their American counterparts.

Published together for the first time are three of Ayn Rand's compelling stage plays. The courtroom drama Night of January 16th, a 1935 Broadway success famous for leaving the verdict to the audience, is presented here in its definitive, final revised text - a superb dramatization of Rand's vision of human strengths and weaknesses.

Mark Twain spills his wit and whimsical sense of humor into his novel The Diaries of Adam and Eve. The story tells of the events that took place in the Garden of Eden prior to the entrance of the deceitful serpent. Adam and Eve are not exactly getting along. Through the struggles listed in their diaries, one can safely assume that these two very different human beings are each other’s greatest source of frustration.

The classic story, told in the first person by Jim Hawkins, whose mother kept the Admiral Benbow Inn, and who shared in the adventures from start to finish. An old sea dog comes to this peaceful inn one day, apparently intending to finish his life there. He hires Jim to keep a watch out for other sailors, but despite all precautions, he is hunted out and served with the black spot that means death. Jim and his mother barely escape death when Blind Pew, Black Dog, and other pirates descend on the inn in search of the sea dog’s papers. Jim snatches up a packet of papers to square the sailor’s debt, when they were forced to retreat from the inn.

A collection of letters Mark Twain wrote for a newspaper publication - from a long, turbulent journey to the island to his encounters with the islanders and the myriad Englishmen who have taken up residence on the island.

Born in 1628, Parisian Charles Perrault was aptly credited as being the “father” of a then-new literary genre: the fairy tale. Often drawing from his own surroundings (the Chateau Ussé was the model for Sleeping Beauty, while the Marquis of the Château d'Oiron inspired the delightful Puss-in-Boots), Perrault originally penned the tales as moral stories for his own three children.

After the young Prince Edward VI of England and a peasant boy switch places, the "little king" tries to escape from a world in which he must beg for food, sleep with rodents, face ridicule, and avoid assassination. Meanwhile, the peasant, who is now the prince, dreads exposure and possible execution; members of the Court believe he has gone mad. As a result of the swap, both boys learn that social class, like so much of life, is determined by chance and random circumstance. With his caustic wit and biting irony, Twain satirizes the power of the monarchy, superstitions, and religious intolerance.

An American editor arrives in Venice on a quest to acquire some unpublished letters written by his favorite Romantic poet, Jeffrey Aspern. He tracks down the mistress to whom the letters were addressed, a now elderly Miss Bordereau, and presents himself as a prospective lodger. In hopes of gaining access to the secret papers, he begins courting Miss Bordereau's plain spinster niece, Miss Tina.

Dedicating the book "to my good friend & comrade, My Wife," L. Frank Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, and it went on to become perhaps one of the most successful tales in the history of American children’s literature. Listeners new to the story and longtime fans alike will delight to join Dorothy and her friends in this timeless tale of the quest for courage, love, and a longing for Home.

Is Shakespeare Dead? is a short, semi-autobiographical work by American humorist Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. It explores the controversy over the authorship of the Shakespearean literary canon via satire, anecdote, and extensive quotation of contemporary authors on the subject. The original publication spans only 150 pages, and the formatting leaves roughly half of each page blank. The spine is thread bound. It was published in April of 1909 by Harper & Brothers, 12 months before Mark Twain's death.

Sketches New and Old is a compilation of fictional stories written by Mark Twain. Among them is "A Ghost Story". In each story, one can catch a great sense of Twain's humor and creativity. These classic sketches from Twain are no longer than 10 minutes, but all show his quick witted humor in response to the events of the day.

Huckleberry Finn may be the greater book, but Tom Sawyer has always been more widely read. Moreover, it is a book that can be enjoyed equally by both children and adults. Twain, who called it a "hymn" to boyhood.

In A Tramp Abroad, the ever adventurous Mark Twain brings his wit and creativity to his travels in Europe. Twain takes fictional liberty, turning his travels into an entertaining journey as he visits many of the countries of Central Europe. Listeners are sure to be delighted and humored as they enjoy what is considered by many to be one of Mark Twain's best works.

Plato's dialogue in the Symposium, which has as its topic the subject of love, explores the idea of love as a means of ascent to contemplation of the Divine. For Plato, generally, to love other human beings is to direct one's mind to love of Divinity. One proceeds from recognition of another's beauty to appreciation of Beauty as it exists apart from any individual, to consideration of Divinity, the source of Beauty, to love of Divinity.