The Emperor's New Clothes
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The Emperor's New Clothes
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Narrated by:
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Alex Lehman
About this listen
There was once an emperor who was only interested in one thing, his clothes. He spent all his money on his outfits and had a different one for every time of day and every occasion. One day, two thieves arrived in town pretending to be weavers who knew how to make the most beautiful and sophisticated fabrics, which had the marvellous property of only being visible to those who did their job well.. It was the perfect offer for our king, who immediately placed an order.
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Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish author, poet and artist. Celebrated for children’s literature, his most cherished fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", "The Nightingale", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Little Match Girl". His books have been translated into every living language, and today there is no child or adult that has not met Andersen's whimsical characters. His fairy tales have been adapted to stage and screen countless times, most notably by Disney with the animated films "The Little Mermaid" in 1989 and "Frozen", which is loosely based on "The Snow Queen", in 2013.
Thanks to Andersen's contribution to children's literature, his birth date, April 2, is celebrated as International Children's Book Day.
©2021 SAGA Egmont (P)2021 SAGA EgmontListeners also enjoyed...
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The Ambassadors
- By: Henry James
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4 out of 5 stars 63
Lambert Strether, a mild, middle-aged American of no particular achievements, is dispatched to Paris from the manufacturing empire of Woollett, Massachusetts. The mission conferred on him by his august patron, Mrs. Newsome, is to discover what, or who, is keeping her son Chad in the notorious city of pleasure and to bring him home. But Strether finds Chad transformed by the influence of a remarkable woman.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Henry James can be hard to follow but worth it
- By Patricia on 01-29-13
By: Henry James
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The Diary of Samuel Pepys: Volume I: 1660 - 1663
- By: Samuel Pepys
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh, David Timson
- Length: 42 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 101
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 102
The Diary of Samuel Pepys is one of the most entertaining documents in English history. Written between 1660 and 1669, as Pepys was establishing himself as a key administrator in the naval office, it is an intimate portrait of life in 17th-century England covering his professional and personal activities, including, famously, his love of music, theatre, food, wine and his peccadilloes.
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5 out of 5 stars
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"Mens cuiusque is est quisque“ or "Mind is the Man”
- By Darwin8u on 11-06-15
By: Samuel Pepys
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The Last Manchu
- The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi, Last Emperor of China
- By: Paul Kramer, Henry Pu Yi
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 108
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 92
In 1908, at the age of two, Henry Pu Yi ascended to become the last emperor of the centuries-old Manchu dynasty. After revolutionaries forced Pu Yi to abdicate in 1911, the young emperor lived for 13 years in Peking’s Forbidden City, but with none of the power his birth afforded him. The remainder of Pu Yi’s life was lived out in a topsy-turvy fashion: fleeing from a Chinese warlord, becoming head of a Japanese puppet state, being confined to a Russian prison in Siberia, and enduring taxing labor.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Marvelous and Ultimately Sad Memoir
- By Sparkly on 08-08-13
By: Paul Kramer, and others
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The Double and The Gambler
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Pevear - translator, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
The two strikingly original short novels brought together here - in new translations by award-winning translators - were both literary gambles of a sort for Fyodor Dostoevsky. The first real expression of his genius, The Double is a surprisingly modern hallucinatory nightmare in which a minor official named Goliadkin becomes aware of a mysterious doppelgänger. Written 20 years later under the pressure of crushing debt, The Gambler is a stunning psychological portrait of a young man's exhilarating and destructive addiction.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Exciting
- By Tad Davis on 02-25-19
By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, and others
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Ragged Dick
- Or Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks
- By: Horatio Alger Jr.
- Narrated by: Christopher Crennen
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 14
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 12
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 13
Ragged Dick details the adventures of Richard Hunter, a homeless boy who earns a living shining shoes on the streets of Manhattan in the mid 1800s. Inspired by a customer he meets, Dick resolves to improve his situation, finds a roommate who can act as his tutor, and overcomes adversity with wit and good cheer. First published in book form in 1866, Ragged Dick was Alger's first great publishing success.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A charming tale...
- By P. M. Lipker on 02-26-16
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The Financier
- By: Theodore Dreiser
- Narrated by: David McCallion
- Length: 18 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
Set in 18th century Philadelphia, the book follows Frank as he amasses a large fortune through stock speculation and purchases of shares in the growing street railway industry. He marries an older woman and has two children and uses his new found wealth to become socially prominent. Things however take a turn for the worst when he has an affair with Aileen Butler, the daughter of a politically prominent Irish industrialist.
By: Theodore Dreiser
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Tales from the Arabian Nights
- By: Andrew Lang
- Narrated by: Toby Stephens
- Length: 2 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 19
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19
Toby Stephens takes us back to the world of cunning, adventure, mishap, and fun. Sheherezade, night after night, weaves her tales and Aladdin and his Magic Lamp, Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and other tales come alive. The unforgettable music of Rimsky-Korsakov sets the scene perfectly. A delightful treat for young listeners.
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4 out of 5 stars
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I AM SINBAD THE SAILOR
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 04-27-17
By: Andrew Lang
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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
- By: Susanna Clarke
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 32 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 11,020
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8,310
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 8,292
English magicians were once the wonder of the known world, with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can only write long, dull papers about it, while fairy servants are nothing but a fading memory.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Hang in there!
- By D. McMillen on 05-31-05
By: Susanna Clarke
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The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz
- A Romance in Eight Days
- By: Johann Valentin Andreae, John Crowley - translator
- Narrated by: John Crowley
- Length: 4 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 153
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 130
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 130
Often described as an alchemical allegory, John Crowley instead decided this is "the first science fiction novel". After all, "it's fiction; it's about the possibilities of a science; and it's a novel". No matter what else it might be, it's definitely one of the great outlandish stories in Western literature.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Trippy
- By David S. Mathew on 07-24-17
By: Johann Valentin Andreae, and others
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Hedda Gabler
- By: Henrik Ibsen
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson, Michael Maloney, full cast
- Length: 2 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 168
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 127
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 127
Hedda Gabler, the daughter of a deceased general, marries dull George Tesman and foresees a life of middle-class tedium stretching ahead when they return from their honeymoon. Increasingly she is drawn into the clutches of her admirer, Judge Brack, who seeks to establish a ménage à trois. Then the brilliant but dissolute Eilert Lovborg, a former flame, arrives to rival her husband for an academic post.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Rewarding Presentation
- By Karen on 12-12-04
By: Henrik Ibsen
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The Betrothed
- By: Alessandro Manzoni
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 24 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 206
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 178
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 178
After the jealous tyrant Don Rodrigo foils their wedding, young Lombardian peasants Lucia and Lorenzo must separate and flee for their safety. Their difficult path to matrimony takes place against the turbulent backdrop of the Thirty Years War, where lawlessness and exploitation are at their height. Lucia takes refuge in a convent, where she is later abducted and taken on a nightmarish journey to a sinister castle, while Lorenzo goes to Milan, where he witnesses famine, riots, and plague - all evoked through meticulous description and with stunning immediacy.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic reading of a great work of literature
- By Pia Crosby on 03-25-19
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The Castle
- By: Franz Kafka
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 259
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Story4 out of 5 stars 146
On his deathbed, Franz Kafka asked that all his unpublished manuscripts be burned. Fortunately, his request was ignored, allowing such works as The Trial to earn recognition among the literary masterpieces of the 20th century. This brilliant new translation of The Castle captures comedic elements and visual imagery that earlier interpretations missed.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Obscure, enigmatic, and not for everyone
- By John on 02-08-06
By: Franz Kafka