Classic Audiobook Collection

A Daughter of Today by Sara Jeannette Duncan audiobook. Genre: dramaIn late-Victorian London and Paris, Elfrida Bell is determined to become more than a well-bred ornament. Brilliant, restless, and fiercely self-aware, she styles herself a modern woman of letters and art, chasing recognition in magazines, salons, and studios while measuring herself against the people who seem effortlessly at home in the world she wants to conquer. As Elfrida forms intense friendships and rivalries with writers, artists, and patrons, she learns that ambition comes with a cost: money is scarce, reputations are fragile, and the line between sincerity and performance can blur in the very circles that promise freedom. Sara Jeannette Duncan follows Elfrida through cramped rooms, glittering parties, and hard-won professional opportunities, capturing the hunger to create, the sting of criticism, and the complicated negotiations of love, independence, and belonging. Sharp, observant, and emotionally incisive, A Daughter of Today is a portrait of a young woman testing the limits of her talent and her era, as she tries to decide what success should look like - and what she is willing to sacrifice to claim it.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 01(00:18:30) Chapter 02(00:42:30) Chapter 03(01:07:24) Chapter 04(01:28:30) Chapter 05(01:40:30) Chapter 06(02:00:06) Chapter 07(02:16:47) Chapter 08(02:32:54) Chapter 09(02:47:22) Chapter 10(03:07:47) Chapter 11(03:36:52) Chapter 12(03:57:20) Chapter 13(04:18:25) Chapter 14(04:39:45) Chapter 15(04:51:55) Chapter 16(05:11:59) Chapter 17(05:30:04) Chapter 18(05:36:18) Chapter 19(05:53:35) Chapter 20(06:03:43) Chapter 21(06:18:01) Chapter 22(06:35:45) Chapter 23(06:51:28) Chapter 24(07:19:12) Chapter 25(07:37:32) Chapter 26(07:55:12) Chapter 27(08:13:06) Chapter 28(08:27:42) Chapter 29(08:32:43) Chapter 30(08:58:05) Chapter 31(09:18:52) Chapter 32(09:27:34) Chapter 33(09:42:01) Chapter 34(10:02:10) Chapter 35 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prayers and Meditations by Samuel Johnson audiobook. Genre: religionPrayers and Meditations offers an intimate look into the private spiritual life of Samuel Johnson, the towering English writer and moralist best known for his essays, criticism, and dictionary. Drawn from his personal papers, these entries trace years of self-examination as Johnson faces recurring illness, grief, temptation, loneliness, and the relentless pressure of time. In plain yet powerful language, he records prayers for guidance and discipline, meditations on sin and mercy, and vows to reorder his days toward charity, study, and honest labor. The book is not a polished devotional manual so much as a candid diary of the soul: a brilliant, anxious mind wrestling with faith in the middle of ordinary obligations and extraordinary sorrow. As Johnson measures resolutions against failures, he returns again and again to themes of repentance, perseverance, and dependence on God, asking what it means to live well when strength and certainty falter. The result is a moving companion for listeners who value spiritual candor, moral seriousness, and the human struggle to align belief with daily life.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 00(00:11:43) Chapter 01(00:18:48) Chapter 02(00:26:49) Chapter 03(00:35:56) Chapter 04(00:47:35) Chapter 05(00:53:08) Chapter 06(01:04:44) Chapter 07(01:11:39) Chapter 08(01:22:46) Chapter 09(01:33:44) Chapter 10(01:45:48) Chapter 11(02:00:04) Chapter 12(02:12:19) Chapter 13(02:21:33) Chapter 14(02:27:36) Chapter 15(02:37:48) Chapter 16(02:45:21) Chapter 17(02:53:25) Chapter 18(02:58:05) Chapter 19(03:09:58) Chapter 20(03:22:01) Chapter 21(03:28:56) Chapter 22 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An American Robinson Crusoe by Samuel B. Allison audiobook. Genre: adventureSamuel B. Allison's An American Robinson Crusoe is a brisk, child-friendly retelling of Daniel Defoe's classic survival story, reshaped for American classrooms and young readers. It begins in New York City, where a restless boy named Robinson Crusoe would rather roam the streets and watch the ships on the Hudson than study for the future his parents imagine for him. Drawn by tales of distant coasts and strange creatures, he chases adventure at sea, only to be swept into disaster when the voyage turns deadly. Cast onto a deserted island with little more than his wits, Robinson must learn to make shelter, find food, protect himself from the elements, and turn loneliness into routine. Each hard-won solution becomes a lesson in ingenuity and perseverance, tracing, step by step, how a careless, rebellious youth can be remade by responsibility and work. Part adventure, part quiet study of self-reliance, this adaptation emphasizes practical problem-solving, the gradual building of tools and habits, and the long fight to remain hopeful when the world has gone silent.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 01(00:14:12) Chapter 02(00:30:12) Chapter 03(00:49:06) Chapter 04(01:06:39) Chapter 05(01:26:40) Chapter 06(01:46:31) Chapter 07(02:10:17) Chapter 08(02:43:09) Chapter 09(03:04:47) Chapter 10 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Benson Murder Case - A Philo Vance Story by S. S. Van Dine audiobook. Genre: mysteryWhen a powerful New York financier is found shot to death in his own mansion, the crime looks at first like a straightforward killing in a house full of money, secrets, and resentments. But the clues do not line up, the motives overlap, and every witness seems to be hiding something. Called in to assist the investigation is Philo Vance, an urbane aesthete with an unsettling gift for seeing what others overlook. Working alongside District Attorney Markham and the dogged Sergeant Heath, Vance studies the crime scene with a connoisseur's eye and a psychologist's patience, weighing everything from a missing object to a stray remark at a dinner table. As suspects multiply among family members, servants, business associates, and social rivals, the case becomes a tense contest between appearances and truth. The Benson Murder Case is a classic puzzle mystery that blends high-society manners with relentless deduction, drawing listeners into a world where privilege protects lies, and a single overlooked detail can change the entire shape of the hunt.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 01(00:28:03) Chapter 02(00:56:31) Chapter 03(01:20:46) Chapter 04(01:45:03) Chapter 05(02:07:39) Chapter 06(02:33:51) Chapter 07(03:05:50) Chapter 08(03:34:42) Chapter 09(03:56:00) Chapter 10(04:17:22) Chapter 11(04:43:32) Chapter 12(05:01:51) Chapter 13(05:21:28) Chapter 14(05:38:31) Chapter 15(06:04:11) Chapter 16(06:32:41) Chapter 17(06:56:19) Chapter 18(07:17:50) Chapter 19(07:46:11) Chapter 20(08:09:54) Chapter 21(08:36:14) Chapter 22(09:09:02) Chapter 23(09:40:09) Chapter 24(10:10:39) Chapter 25 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Actions And Reactions by Rudyard Kipling audiobook. Genre: adventureRudyard Kipling's Actions And Reactions is a wide-ranging collection of stories in which private choices collide with public forces - empire, technology, class, and the stubborn pull of the past. From English countryside homes shadowed by old histories to far-flung outposts where duty and survival test the limits of loyalty, Kipling follows soldiers, engineers, travelers, and ordinary men and women caught in moments when a single decision sets larger consequences in motion. The collection moves between grounded realism and imaginative speculation, pairing intimate dramas of marriage, inheritance, and belonging with tales that look forward to new machines and new kinds of conflict. Across these different settings, Kipling returns to recurring questions: what do people owe to tradition, to family, and to the systems that employ them? How do communities respond when change arrives - slowly through custom, or suddenly through disaster? Written with sharp observation, brisk narrative energy, and a keen ear for professional life and social ritual, these stories invite listeners to watch cause and effect unfold, sometimes quietly and sometimes with explosive force.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 01(01:12:36) Chapter 02(01:14:00) Chapter 03(01:49:38) Chapter 04(01:51:26) Chapter 05(02:29:59) Chapter 06(02:32:26) Chapter 07(03:49:08) Chapter 08(03:53:32) Chapter 09(04:27:07) Chapter 10(04:28:43) Chapter 11(04:56:23) Chapter 12(04:58:13) Chapter 13(05:43:14) Chapter 14(05:46:34) Chapter 15(06:36:00) Chapter 16 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Roy Chapman Andrews, famed adventurer/paleontologist, shares his thrilling journey through China's Great Northwest, describing encounters with diverse wildlife and challenges of the Gobi Desert. He discusses hunting expeditions, capturing motion pictures of antelope, and observations of tiny mammals. Andrews also explores the unique culture and landscapes of Mongolia and northern China, highlighting the importance of conservation and the potential for commercial opportunities.

The Maker of Moons, and Other Short Stories by Robert W. Chambers audiobook. Genre: horrorIn this eerie early collection from Robert W. Chambers, the everyday world keeps cracking open to reveal hidden rooms of dread, enchantment, and obsession. The stories range from shadowed city streets to lonely country houses, from moonlit gardens to back rooms where forbidden crafts are practiced, and they share a single question: what happens when curiosity draws ordinary people too close to the impossible? Artists, amateurs, and hardheaded witnesses find their assumptions tested by strange rites, uncanny artifacts, and figures who seem to step out of legend but leave very real consequences behind. Chambers writes with a painter's eye for atmosphere, layering sumptuous detail with sudden, unsettling turns, so that beauty and menace arrive hand in hand. Some tales lean toward dreamlike fantasy, others toward supernatural suspense, but all explore the same fragile boundary between what can be explained and what can only be endured. The result is a set of short fictions that invites you to wander, cautiously, into worlds where the moon might be made, remade, or taken away.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 01(00:13:28) Chapter 02(00:24:01) Chapter 03(00:35:29) Chapter 04(00:46:11) Chapter 05(01:03:08) Chapter 06(01:21:50) Chapter 07(01:31:07) Chapter 08(02:03:50) Chapter 09(02:16:30) Chapter 10(02:28:46) Chapter 11(02:37:16) Chapter 12(02:46:15) Chapter 13(02:47:40) Chapter 14(02:54:49) Chapter 15(03:02:17) Chapter 16(03:20:13) Chapter 17(03:28:08) Chapter 18(03:47:01) Chapter 19(04:08:26) Chapter 20(04:24:55) Chapter 21(04:36:06) Chapter 22(04:51:56) Chapter 23(04:59:43) Chapter 24(05:07:13) Chapter 25(05:14:53) Chapter 26(05:29:50) Chapter 27(05:41:22) Chapter 28(05:53:30) Chapter 29(06:03:24) Chapter 30(06:19:39) Chapter 31(06:33:59) Chapter 32(06:55:21) Chapter 33(07:09:52) Chapter 34(07:22:16) Chapter 35(07:34:54) Chapter 36(07:49:42) Chapter 37(08:03:31) Chapter 38(08:30:41) Chapter 39(08:53:01) Chapter 40 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Dog Crusoe and His Master by Robert Ballantyne audiobook. Genre: adventureIn The Dog Crusoe and His Master, Robert Michael Ballantyne spins a brisk, sea-salted tale of hardship, loyalty, and hard-won hope. Set against the vast, unforgiving Atlantic and the rugged coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador, the story follows a young sailor and fisherman who is swept into a chain of misfortunes that strips him of comfort and certainty. Beside him stands his most steadfast companion: Crusoe, a tough, intelligent dog whose courage and devotion become the difference between despair and survival. As storms, hunger, and isolation test them, master and dog must learn to read the moods of wind and water, to labor for every scrap of safety, and to trust each other when no one else is near. Along the way, Ballantyne folds in vivid details of seafaring life, the perilous work of coastal communities, and the moral question of what it means to endure without losing your humanity. At its heart, this is a survival story powered by friendship, resilience, and the fierce will to keep going when the world turns cruel.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 01(00:17:18) Chapter 02(00:37:27) Chapter 03(00:56:44) Chapter 04(01:09:09) Chapter 05(01:33:34) Chapter 06(01:51:17) Chapter 07(02:24:03) Chapter 08(02:49:29) Chapter 09(03:09:10) Chapter 10(03:35:05) Chapter 11(03:58:39) Chapter 12(04:11:28) Chapter 13(04:27:24) Chapter 14(04:39:31) Chapter 15(05:07:59) Chapter 16(05:28:05) Chapter 17(05:42:33) Chapter 18(06:04:15) Chapter 19(06:23:51) Chapter 20(07:00:57) Chapter 21(07:25:27) Chapter 22(07:36:42) Chapter 23(08:02:58) Chapter 24(08:24:05) Chapter 25(08:40:03) Chapter 26(08:53:52) Chapter 27 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My Doggie and I by Robert Ballantyne audiobook. Genre: familyIn Victorian London, young medical student John Mellon prides himself on being practical, but his life is quietly transformed the moment he takes home a small, shaggy dog with a comically unglamorous look and an outsized spirit. John names him Dumps (also called Pompey), and the pair become inseparable as John makes his rounds in the struggling streets around Whitechapel, where illness, poverty, and loneliness press in on every doorstep. What begins as a light, affectionate portrait of a man and his dog soon widens into a chain of encounters: a fiercely independent street waif with a sharp tongue, an elderly woman who needs more than medicine, and a handful of ordinary people trying to do right in a hard city. Through mishaps, narrow escapes, and small acts of courage, Dumps proves to be more than a pet. He becomes the living thread that draws wounded lives together and tests what John believes about duty, kindness, and faith in action. Warm, humorous, and earnest, this classic tale celebrates companionship and the surprising ways compassion can travel on four muddy paws.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 01(00:19:19) Chapter 02(00:38:38) Chapter 03(00:57:31) Chapter 04(01:15:04) Chapter 05(01:36:04) Chapter 06(01:52:55) Chapter 07(02:11:21) Chapter 08(02:28:59) Chapter 09(02:49:00) Chapter 10(03:09:28) Chapter 11(03:28:57) Chapter 12(03:46:28) Chapter 13(04:05:41) Chapter 14 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall by Plunkitt audiobook. Genre: historyPart memoir, part political primer, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall captures the voice of George Washington Plunkitt, a colorful, plainspoken power broker from New York City's Tammany Hall machine. In a series of candid conversations and speeches, Plunkitt lays out how ward politics really works - from turning out votes and settling neighborhood disputes to rewarding loyalty with jobs and favors. He proudly explains his famous idea of 'honest graft,' arguing that there is a practical difference between profiting from inside knowledge and outright theft, and he dares the reader to decide where the line should be drawn. As reformers, reporters, and rival factions circle, Plunkitt defends the machine as a force that feeds families, keeps order, and gives immigrants a foothold in American life, even as its methods raise urgent questions about corruption and democracy. Witty, blunt, and unexpectedly shrewd, this short classic offers an unvarnished look at patronage, persuasion, and the everyday bargaining that shaped urban politics at the turn of the twentieth century.For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate)(00:00:00) Chapter 00(00:05:28) Chapter 01(00:12:58) Chapter 02(00:21:16) Chapter 03(00:32:22) Chapter 04(00:39:49) Chapter 05(00:47:10) Chapter 06(00:55:06) Chapter 07(01:02:56) Chapter 08(01:11:17) Chapter 09(01:18:13) Chapter 10(01:25:26) Chapter 11(01:34:22) Chapter 12(01:41:02) Chapter 13(01:46:47) Chapter 14(01:54:28) Chapter 15(02:02:04) Chapter 16(02:07:50) Chapter 17(02:15:12) Chapter 18(02:22:57) Chapter 19(02:29:32) Chapter 20(02:35:04) Chapter 21(02:41:57) Chapter 22(02:45:41) Chapter 23 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices