The Mortal Immortal
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The Mortal Immortal
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Narrated by:
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Jack Benson
About this listen
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English romantic and gothic novelist who is most famous as the author of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. She was married to the notable Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. She also wrote a number of shorter "tales of the unnatural", of which "The Mortal Immortal", a story of a man who will not die, is the most famous.
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The author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, delights with this similarly unsettling short story, "The Mortal Immortal," written in 1833. The protagonist, Winzy, drinks an elixir of immortality only to discover that eternal life is much more torturous than expected. Jack Benson gives an enthralling performance. His deep voice lends itself well to the story's intense and dark tone. His perfect pacing skillfully shifts from slow and deliberate to wild and action-packed. Shelley's gothic short story together with Benson's shadowy voice will delight listeners looking for a fright.
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
Alone among the creatures of the world, man suffers a pang both bitter and sweet. It is an ache for the homecoming. The Greeks called it nostalgia. Post-modern man, homeless almost by definition, cannot understand nostalgia. If he is a progressive, dreaming of a utopia to come, he dismisses it contemptuously, eager to bury a past he despises. If he is a reactionary, he sentimentalizes it, dreaming of a lost golden age. In this profound reflection, Anthony Esolen explores the true meaning of nostalgia and its place in the human heart.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Deep and thought provoking.
- By Holly Stockley on 04-24-19
By: Anthony Esolen
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Tales from Shakespeare
- The Lambs' Tales (Puffin Classics)
- By: Charles Lamb, Mary Lamb, William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Alan Cumming, Nigel Davenport, Andrew Sachs, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
A perfect introduction for all ages to the breadth and beauty of Shakespeare's work, Tales from Shakespearehas become a classic work in its own right. The tales bring vividly alive the power of Hamlet and Macbeth, the fun of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the drama of The Tempest. Blending detailed narrative with original dialogue and poetic language, they fully convey the wit, wisdom, and imagination of Shakespeare's magnificent plays.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not all of the stories
- By GPH on 08-22-18
By: Charles Lamb, and others
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The Monk
- By: Matthew Lewis
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton, Georgina Sutton
- Length: 14 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 168
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 147
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 146
Father Ambrosio, the most pious and venerated monk in all of Madrid, is held as a paragon of virtue. But after 30 years of study and prayer, evil thoughts begin to permeate his mind. As two plots cleverly converge, torture, murder, incest, rape, poison, and magic prevail, sustained by an elegance in the writing of the 19-year-old Matthew Lewis.
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5 out of 5 stars
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the Platonic Form of the Gothic novel!.org
- By Mao Dom on 11-15-18
By: Matthew Lewis
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The Roman Way
- By: Edith Hamilton
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 199
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 150
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 150
Edith Hamilton shows us Rome through the eyes of the Romans. Plautus and Terence, Cicero and Caesar, Catullus, Horace, Virgil, and Augustus come to life in their ambitions, their work, their loves and hates. In them we see reflected a picture of Roman life very different from that fixed in our minds through schoolroom days, and far livelier.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not so bad
- By steve on 04-25-11
By: Edith Hamilton
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Frankenstein
- By: Mary Shelley
- Narrated by: Dan Stevens
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 20,428
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 18,395
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 18,325
Narrator Dan Stevens ( Downton Abbey) presents an uncanny performance of Mary Shelley's timeless gothic novel, an epic battle between man and monster at its greatest literary pitch. In trying to create life, the young student Victor Frankenstein unleashes forces beyond his control, setting into motion a long and tragic chain of events that brings Victor to the very brink of madness. How he tries to destroy his creation, as it destroys everything Victor loves, is a powerful story of love, friendship, scientific hubris, and horror.
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3 out of 5 stars
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ARE WE ALWAYS TO BE UNHAPPY?
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 01-28-16
By: Mary Shelley
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Keats
- A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph
- By: Lucasta Miller
- Narrated by: Sally Scott
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story5 out of 5 stars 42
Miller, through Keats’s poetry, brilliantly resurrects and brings vividly to life, the man, the poet in all his complexity and spirit, living dangerously, disdaining respectability and cultural norms, and embracing subversive politics. Keats was a lower-middle-class outsider from a tragic and fractured family, whose extraordinary energy and love of language allowed him to pummel his way into the heart of English literature; a freethinker and a liberal at a time of repression, who delighted in the sensation of the moment.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Romantic Life
- By David on 05-03-22
By: Lucasta Miller
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The Coming Race
- By: Edward Bulwer Lytton
- Narrated by: William Hope
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 77
Edward Bulwer-Lytton's book is ostensibly a work of Science Fiction. It deals with an underground race of advanced beings, masters of Vril energy - a strange power that can both heal and destroy - who intend to leave their subterranean existence and conquer the world. But the book has been seen by many as a barely concealed account of Hidden Wisdom, a theory that has attracted many strange bed-fellows, including the French author Louis Jacolliot, the Polish explorer Ferdinand Ossendowsky, and Adolf Hitler.
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1 out of 5 stars
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dated - worked to get through it
- By Cat Lover who doesn't work out on 10-10-19
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Poor People
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Patrick Cullen, Julia Emlen
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4 out of 5 stars 42
Written as a series of letters, Poor People tells the tragic tale of a petty clerk and his impossible love for a young girl. Longing to help her and her family, he sells everything he can, but his kindness leads him only into more desperate poverty, and ultimately into debauchery. As a typical "man of the underground", he serves as the embodiment of the belief that happiness can only be achieved with riches.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Background before listening recommended!
- By Rebecarol on 10-02-08
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Shakespeare for Children
- By: Charles Lamb, Mary Lamb
- Narrated by: Josephine Bailey
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Introduce your children to the magic of Shakespeare with these 20 favorite tales. Although simplified, these lively stories don't underestimate young readers; they keep the complexity, twists of plot, and turns of fate found in the originals.
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1 out of 5 stars
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NOT unabridged
- By Erica on 11-06-07
By: Charles Lamb, and others
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The Great Poets: Alfred Lord Tennyson
- By: Alfred Tennyson
- Narrated by: Michael Pennington
- Length: 1 hr and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 158
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 135
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 133
The 200th anniversary of the birth of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892), one of the most popular of poets, is celebrated in 2009. Works such as The Charge of the Light Brigade, Crossing the Bar and Tears, Idle Tears have made him an internationally famous figure, and the second most quoted writer of all time (after Shakespeare).
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5 out of 5 stars
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One of the most popular Victorian poets
- By ESK on 01-07-13
By: Alfred Tennyson
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The Scarlet Letter
- By: Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Narrated by: Kate Petrie
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,474
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,280
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,278
One of the most important novels in classic literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter tackles the subject of adultery, with the notorious Hester Prynne at the forefront of the scandal in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the beginning of the novel, Hester is serving time in prison for having a child out of wedlock and is forced to wear a scarlet A on her clothing at all times, so she cannot run from her sin no matter where she goes.
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3 out of 5 stars
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missing the introductory???
- By Savannah on 05-20-20
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Isak Dinesen
- The Life of a Storyteller
- By: Judith Thurman
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 21 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4 out of 5 stars 55
Isak Dinesen earned international fame for Seven Gothic Tales and Out of Africa, and other stories that skillfully combine elements of fable, social conflict, and psychological drama. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize. Yet the story of her life - her travels, affairs, and friendships - remains the greatest story of all.
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3 out of 5 stars
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over-written
- By Jacqui Good on 10-19-18
By: Judith Thurman