Classic Audiobook Collection

The Dancing Girls by Edna Ferber audiobook. Genre: dramaIn The Dancing Girls, Edna Ferber gathers four sharp, warmhearted stories about ordinary people pushed to their limits by class, family obligation, and war. In the title tale, Chippewa, Wisconsin, is split cleanly by money and by the railroad tracks. Floyd 'Chug' Scaritt, a talented young garage owner and irresistible dance partner, knows exactly where he stands - until a late-night accident and the sudden demands of World War I briefly scramble the town's social rules. As uniforms, dances, and patriotic committees bring unlikely people together, Chug discovers a different kind of girl - and a different kind of future - than the one his old crowd expects. In 'Old Lady Mandle,' a proud Chicago matriarch reigns over her devoted son until a new wife threatens the balance of power. 'Long Distance' follows a wounded American soldier in an English rehabilitation hospital, where love letters and memory wage a quiet battle. And in 'One Hundred Per Cent,' the indomitable Emma McChesney Buck returns to work and travel, determined to put every ounce of herself into the home-front effort. Together, these stories blend humor, tenderness, and unsparing social observation.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 1(00:49:44) Chapter 2(01:41:21) Chapter 3(01:53:39) Chapter 4 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Roast Beef, Medium by Edna Ferber audiobook. Genre: dramaThis book follows the adventures of Emma McChesney, a smart and savvy divorced mother who travels the Midwest as a sales representative for a large skirt and petticoat manufacturer. Her many adventures with people, (including predatory salesmen and hotel clerks), are funny and poignant. She is hardworking and able to outsell the slickest of the men salesmen. She has learned to focus on her work and her seventeen-year-old son, Jock. Experience has taught her that it is usually best to stick to roast beef, medium and not get stomach ache with fancy sauces and exotic dishes. This is the first of three volumes following the career and adventures of Emma McChesney.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 00(00:02:57) Chapter 01(00:26:56) Chapter 02(00:52:09) Chapter 03(01:16:53) Chapter 04(01:43:30) Chapter 05(02:11:55) Chapter 06(02:38:35) Chapter 07(03:05:36) Chapter 08(03:38:27) Chapter 09(04:13:19) Chapter 10 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Personality Plus by Edna Ferber audiobook. Genre: dramaSet in bustling early 1900s New York, Personality Plus follows Emma McChesney, a stylish, sharp-witted divorced mother who has fought her way up from life on the road to a coveted seat in the office as partner in the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company. With a real home at last and a new level of responsibility, Emma expects challenges - but not necessarily from the person she loves most. Her son, Jock, is twenty-one and determined to conquer the advertising world on his own terms, armed with confidence, charm, and a hunger to prove that modern hustle beats old-school know-how. As Jock dazzles coworkers and courts big accounts, his gift for selling can slide into showmanship, bending rules and bruising egos. When business pressures mount and a high-stakes campaign pulls mother and son into the same orbit, Emma must defend the value of experience, ethics, and steady judgment - even as she confronts her own doubts about what success should look like. With brisk dialogue, humor, and social insight, Ferber delivers a lively clash of ambition and integrity, and a portrait of a woman refusing to be sidelined in either boardroom or family.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 1(00:31:07) Chapter 2(01:01:58) Chapter 3(01:33:07) Chapter 4(02:11:54) Chapter 5 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One Basket by Edna Ferber audiobook. Genre: dramaOne Basket gathers Edna Ferber's most memorable short fiction into a single, wide-ranging portrait of American life, chosen and introduced by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author herself. Spanning decades and shifting from small-town streets to city apartments, from cramped kitchens to prosperous parlors, these stories follow people caught between what they want and what their communities will allow. Women stand at the center: a notorious beauty trying to live down a past in The Woman Who Tried to Be Good, wives and husbands learning that love can be both tenderness and negotiation, and mothers confronting the quiet power and pressure of family bonds. Ferber writes with a reporter's eye for telling detail and a dramatist's instinct for dialogue, revealing how class, reputation, ambition, and longing shape ordinary choices. Some tales are wryly comic, others sharp-edged and moving, but each turns on the same question: what does it cost to become the person you claim to be? With brief author prefaces that illuminate her craft and themes, One Basket is both an inviting introduction and a rich retrospective of Ferber's storytelling range.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 1(00:28:25) Chapter 2(01:20:00) Chapter 3(02:16:08) Chapter 4(03:13:21) Chapter 5(04:09:46) Chapter 6(04:22:01) Chapter 7 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Valley of Decision by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: historySet in late 18th-century Italy on the eve of the French Revolution, Edith Wharton's debut novel follows Odo Valsecca, a sensitive boy raised among peasants who learns that his blood ties him to a ruling house. When a sudden turn of fortune draws him into aristocratic life and positions him to inherit the dukedom of Pianura, Odo arrives with a reformer's hopes shaped by Enlightenment ideas and by the hardships he has witnessed at the bottom of the social order. Court etiquette, church authority, and entrenched privilege, however, prove as formidable as any enemy, and Odo discovers that power is a maze of compromises, allies, and hidden costs. At the center of his private life is Fulvia Vivaldi, a brilliant and daring liberal whose convictions both inspire and endanger him, forcing Odo to weigh love and loyalty against prudence and duty. As political factions harden and unrest spreads, Odo must decide what kind of ruler he will be, and what he is willing to sacrifice to make change real.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 00(00:00:45) Chapter 01(00:18:28) Chapter 02(00:36:27) Chapter 03(00:50:24) Chapter 04(01:11:14) Chapter 05(01:28:18) Chapter 06(01:52:57) Chapter 07(02:11:38) Chapter 08(02:39:56) Chapter 09(02:57:05) Chapter 10(03:14:56) Chapter 11(03:27:21) Chapter 12(03:45:48) Chapter 13(04:15:33) Chapter 14(04:35:44) Chapter 15(04:55:52) Chapter 16(05:17:55) Chapter 17(05:24:29) Chapter 18(05:40:27) Chapter 19(06:12:04) Chapter 20(06:38:08) Chapter 21(07:06:30) Chapter 22(07:29:32) Chapter 23(07:52:17) Chapter 24(08:25:25) Chapter 25(09:06:53) Chapter 26(09:50:30) Chapter 27(10:11:54) Chapter 28(11:00:39) Chapter 29(11:23:27) Chapter 30(11:46:27) Chapter 31(12:18:58) Chapter 32(12:40:43) Chapter 33(13:08:34) Chapter 34(13:31:53) Chapter 35(13:55:33) Chapter 36(14:04:26) Chapter 37(14:26:30) Chapter 38(14:47:09) Chapter 39(15:03:46) Chapter 40(15:30:07) Chapter 41(15:53:50) Chapter 42(16:15:49) Chapter 43 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Touchstone by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: dramaIn turn-of-the-century New York, Stephen Glennard is a promising but faltering man of letters with one urgent desire: to marry Alexa Trent, the gracious woman he loves. But with his career slipping and money running out, Stephen finds himself trapped between respectability and desperation. A tempting opportunity appears when he realizes he still possesses a cache of intensely personal letters written to him by Margaret Aubyn, a celebrated author who is now dead and newly idolized by the literary world. Publishing such a correspondence could bring a fortune - and it would be easy to hide his own connection to it. Yet the choice forces Stephen to measure what, exactly, he is willing to trade for comfort, status, and a future with Alexa. As the letters begin to circulate, their intimate voice draws readers in and throws Stephen into a tightening web of secrecy, shame, and self-justification. Edith Wharton turns a seemingly simple act into a piercing moral drama about ambition, betrayal, and the cost of building a life on another person's most private truths.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 01(00:10:34) Chapter 02(00:27:57) Chapter 03(00:35:36) Chapter 04(00:51:42) Chapter 05(01:03:05) Chapter 06(01:18:11) Chapter 07(01:30:19) Chapter 08(01:44:24) Chapter 09(01:51:23) Chapter 10(02:01:20) Chapter 11(02:05:46) Chapter 12(02:17:19) Chapter 13(02:31:47) Chapter 14 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: dramaEdith Wharton's The House of Mirth follows Lily Bart, a beautiful, intelligent young woman trying to secure her place in New York's glittering Gilded Age society. With little money of her own and mounting debts, Lily must navigate a world where status is currency and marriage is often treated as a transaction. Moving between lavish drawing rooms, country weekends, and whispered gossip, she balances her desire for comfort and independence against the unforgiving rules that govern her reputation. Key friendships and rivalries shape her path: the steady, watchful presence of Lawrence Selden offers glimpses of a freer life, while powerful social gatekeepers and would-be benefactors test how far Lily is willing to bend. As small missteps are magnified into scandal, Lily faces escalating pressure to choose security at any cost or risk being pushed to the margins. Sharp, tragicomic, and psychologically precise, Wharton's novel exposes the moral compromises of wealth, the fragility of social standing, and the personal toll of living as an ornament in a society built to break the unprotected.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 1(00:27:10) Chapter 2(00:47:32) Chapter 3(01:20:56) Chapter 4(01:47:50) Chapter 5(02:15:55) Chapter 6(02:42:39) Chapter 7(03:07:27) Chapter 8(03:35:51) Chapter 9(04:04:40) Chapter 10(04:25:15) Chapter 11(04:44:01) Chapter 12(05:09:29) Chapter 13(05:33:19) Chapter 14(06:17:23) Chapter 15(06:45:30) Chapter 16(07:15:16) Chapter 17(07:47:34) Chapter 18(08:16:44) Chapter 19(08:41:07) Chapter 20(09:04:29) Chapter 21(09:31:32) Chapter 22(09:50:56) Chapter 23(10:19:17) Chapter 24(10:40:45) Chapter 25(11:14:52) Chapter 26(11:33:26) Chapter 27(11:47:54) Chapter 28(12:18:57) Chapter 29 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Greater Inclination by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: dramaFirst published in 1899, The Greater Inclination introduces Edith Wharton at the start of her career with a collection of short stories that cut through the polite surface of late-19th-century society. Across drawing rooms, country estates, and chance encounters abroad, Wharton follows men and women who discover that a single choice can tilt an entire life: a young person torn between comfort and integrity, an artist or dreamer forced to bargain with convention, a marriage strained by unspoken expectations, a friendship tested by money and reputation. With crisp dialogue and an unsparing eye for social rules, Wharton turns small gestures - a letter withheld, a visit delayed, a glance misread - into high-stakes moral drama. The stories share a quiet intensity, asking what it costs to pursue love, freedom, or self-respect when everyone around you is keeping score. Elegant, ironic, and emotionally precise, this collection is both a portrait of a world obsessed with appearances and a timeless study of desire, duty, and the private rebellions people risk when they dare to want more.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 1(00:31:41) Chapter 2(00:56:43) Chapter 3(01:37:35) Chapter 4(02:36:38) Chapter 5(03:09:44) Chapter 6(03:35:44) Chapter 7(04:32:15) Chapter 8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: dramaEdith Wharton's The Glimpses of the Moon follows Susy Branch and Nick Lansing, two charming, cash-strapped members of New York's glittering social orbit who decide to marry for love while trying to outmaneuver the realities of money. Their plan is to live lightly, borrowing the luxuries of their wealthy friends and drifting from one borrowed house party, yacht trip, and country weekend to the next. But the thin line between freedom and dependence quickly tightens. As invitations come with expectations, and kindness carries hidden costs, Susy and Nick discover how easily a marriage can be strained by envy, pride, and the quiet humiliations of always needing something. When tempting alternatives appear in the form of richer companions and more stable futures, the couple must confront what they truly owe each other - and what they are willing to sacrifice to keep love from turning into a transaction. With Wharton's sharp eye for social performance and emotional truth, the novel explores devotion, ambition, and the price of belonging in a world where comfort is never free.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 01(00:17:16) Chapter 02(00:31:26) Chapter 03(00:42:33) Chapter 04(00:57:32) Chapter 05(01:11:02) Chapter 06(01:23:44) Chapter 07(01:40:46) Chapter 08(01:54:07) Chapter 09(02:12:17) Chapter 10(02:28:25) Chapter 11(02:42:30) Chapter 12(03:02:46) Chapter 13(03:21:36) Chapter 14(03:35:11) Chapter 15(03:53:33) Chapter 16(04:08:59) Chapter 17(04:26:53) Chapter 18(04:41:24) Chapter 19(05:00:30) Chapter 20(05:19:32) Chapter 21(05:35:04) Chapter 22(05:50:29) Chapter 23(06:06:35) Chapter 24(06:20:02) Chapter 25(06:40:34) Chapter 26(06:56:32) Chapter 27(07:06:05) Chapter 28(07:18:42) Chapter 29(07:37:46) Chapter 30 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton audiobook. Genre: dramaIn early 20th-century New England, young social worker Justine Brent arrives in the hill town of Hanaford determined to make herself useful, only to find that good intentions can collide with privilege, tradition, and the messy realities of care. Drawn into the orbit of the wealthy Amherst family, Justine becomes companion and confidante to the restless, idealistic John Amherst and his ailing wife, Bessy, whose chronic pain and fragile nerves dominate the household. As Justine and John throw themselves into reforming a local mill town and improving workers' lives, private crises begin to threaten their public mission. When an accident and a long convalescence push the family to the edge, Justine is forced to weigh duty against compassion and ask what mercy truly means, especially when law, medicine, and social judgment offer no clear answers. Edith Wharton crafts a tense, morally complex story about conscience and consequence, love and loyalty, and the price of acting on principle in a world that rarely forgives difficult choices.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 01(00:06:44) Chapter 02(00:38:46) Chapter 03(01:04:38) Chapter 04(01:38:16) Chapter 05(02:09:23) Chapter 06(02:36:42) Chapter 07(03:05:47) Chapter 08(03:26:02) Chapter 09(03:46:36) Chapter 10(04:10:52) Chapter 11(04:34:21) Chapter 12(05:03:49) Chapter 13(05:21:23) Chapter 14(05:45:43) Chapter 15(06:03:50) Chapter 16(06:22:06) Chapter 17(06:52:57) Chapter 18(07:12:22) Chapter 19(07:32:33) Chapter 20(07:46:22) Chapter 21(08:09:31) Chapter 22(08:30:58) Chapter 23(08:46:08) Chapter 24(09:12:00) Chapter 25(09:33:59) Chapter 26(09:50:11) Chapter 27(10:07:55) Chapter 28(10:30:23) Chapter 29(10:48:25) Chapter 30(11:13:44) Chapter 31(11:32:00) Chapter 32(11:48:53) Chapter 33(12:05:31) Chapter 34(12:33:16) Chapter 35(12:44:37) Chapter 36(13:09:08) Chapter 37(13:25:52) Chapter 38(13:45:10) Chapter 39(14:15:47) Chapter 40(14:39:29) Chapter 41(14:59:47) Chapter 42(15:16:40) Chapter 43 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices