Showing results by narrator "Charlton Griffin" in All Categories

Here in one recording is every Sherlock Holmes story ever written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally appearing in serial form, these famous stories are here presented in the order in which they were first published beginning in 1887. Included in this definitive, award-winning collection are four novels and 56 short stories, a total of 60 titles. The 56 short stories are aggregated into five named collections, just as they were originally published in book form.

Dio Cassius was a Roman statesman and historian of Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the subsequent founding of Rome (753 BC), the formation of the republic (509 BC), and the creation of the empire (31 BC). The history continues until AD 229.

When Gone with the Wind appeared in 1936, it became on overnight sensation. Nothing like it in American literature had ever been seen. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and become one of the most celebrated films of all time. It has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and been translated into 27 languages. Gone with the Wind is both an historical novel and an examination of the bewildering changes that swept Georgia in the 1860s.

The Aeneid represents one of the greatest cultural and artistic achievements of Western Civilization. Within the brooding and melancholy atmosphere of Virgil's pious masterpiece lies the mythic story of Aeneas and his flight from burning Troy, taking with him across the Mediterranean the survivors of the Greek onslaught. Aeneas, after many travails and adventures, including a love affair with Dido Queen of Carthage and a visit to the underworld to see his father, ends up in Italy.

Herodotus was a Greek historian born in Halicarnassus, subject at the time of the great Persian Empire. He lived in the fifth century BC (c. 484 - c. 425 BC), a contemporary of Socrates. He is often referred to as "The Father of History", a title originally conferred by Cicero. Herodotus was the first historian known to have broken from Homeric tradition in order to treat historical subjects as a method of investigation, specifically by collecting his materials in a critical, systematic fashion and then arranging them into a chronological narrative.

Here in a single volume is the entire, unabridged recording of Gibbon's masterpiece. Beginning in the second century A.D. at the apex of the Pax Romana, Gibbon traces the arc of decline and complete destruction through the centuries across Europe and the Mediterranean. It is a thrilling and cautionary tale of splendor and ruin, of faith and hubris, and of civilization and barbarism. Follow along as Christianity overcomes paganism... before itself coming under intense pressure from Islam.

The Dark Ages is the story of the birth of Western civilization. It was a harrowing crucible of war, destruction, and faith. For over 100 years, Charles Oman's famous history has remained one of the finest sources for the study of this period. Covering a period of 500 years and an area stretching from Northern Germany to Egypt, this is the definitive history that will alter your conceptions of a period of history that gave birth to the civilization we live in today.

Generally considered to be J. B. Bury's magnum opus, this kaleidoscopic and assiduously accurate reconstruction of the Western and Eastern Roman empire covers the crucial years from the death of Theodosius in 395 to the death of Justinian in 565. This 170 year period reveals the forces and cross-currents which engulfed Constantinople, Rome, Antioch, along with the Germanic and Persian peoples. Various tribes like the Huns, Lombards, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Vandals are carefully investigated.

This magnificent novel is about the murder of a miserly, aged pawnbroker and her younger sister by a radical, destitute St. Petersburg student named Raskolnikov, and the emotional, mental, and physical effects that follow. It is a remarkable masterpiece about a man's turbulent inner life and his relationship to others and to society at large.

Plutarch (c. AD 46-AD 120) was born to a prominent family in the small Greek town of Chaeronea, about 20 miles east of Delphi in the region known as Boeotia. His best known work is the Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues and vices. The surviving lives contain 23 pairs, each with one Greek life and one Roman life as well as four unpaired single lives.

Historians universally agree that Thucydides was the greatest historian who has ever lived, and that his story of the Peloponnesian conflict is a marvel of forensic science and fine literature. That such a triumph of intellectual accomplishment was created at the end of the fifth century B.C. in Greece is, perhaps, not so surprising, given the number of original geniuses we find in that period. But that such an historical work would also be simultaneously acknowledged as a work of great literature and a penetrating ethical evaluation of humanity is one of the miracles of ancient history.

Initially, the Thirty Years War was precipitated in 1618 by religious conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire. But the conflict soon spread beyond religion to encompass the internal politics and balance of power within the Empire, and then later to the other European powers. By the end, it became simply a dynastic struggle between Bourbon France and Habsburg Spain. And almost all of it was fought out in Germany. Entire regions were depopulated and destroyed.

Goethe was probably the greatest universal genius who ever lived. Although known primarily as a poet, playright, and novelist, he was also known for his work in anatomy, botany, color, art criticism, and jurisprudence. Many people are deterred from attempting to read anything by Goethe because of his extremely penetrating intelligence and dense prose. But his travel diary, Italian Journey, is by far easier to digest than anything else by him.

Listening to The Satires by Juvenal is to come face to face with the corruption, the debauchery, the waste, the sloth, and the mean-spirited greed of ancient Rome...or is it more like modern times? Indeed, these masterpieces of biting social commentary could easily have been written today about any number of metropolitan areas we are all familiar with.

Volume Two of Dio Cassius brings to a close his sweeping historical work, Roman History. This volume begins with book 50 and the struggle between Octavian and Mark Antony. Octavian's victory is the beginning of the Principate and a new direction in Roman history. Dio takes a prolonged look at the reign of Augustus.

Dante's Divine Comedy is considered to be not only the most important epic poem in Italian literature, but also one of the greatest poems ever written. It consists of 100 cantos, and (after an introductory canto) they are divided into three sections. Each section is 33 cantos in length, and they describe how Dante and a guide travel through Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.

Translated by W. E. D. Rouse, The March of the Ten Thousand is one of the most admired and widely read pieces of ancient literature to come down to us. Xenophon employs a very simple, straightforward style to describe what is probably the most exciting military adventure ever undertaken. It is an epic of courage, faith and democratic principle.

French literature may be said to begin with the ninth century "Song of Roland," and it has since then churned out masterpiece after masterpiece in every century right up to the present. Beginning with Balzac and Dumas in the early part of the nineteenth century and proceeding to Sartre and Camus at the midpoint of the twentieth, the stories in this collection showcase the talents of some of the greatest French masters of the short story.

When Livy began his epic The History of Rome, he had no idea of the fame and fortune he would eventually attain. He would go on to become the most widely read writer in the Roman Empire and was eagerly sought out and feted like a modern celebrity. And his fame continued to grow after his death. His bombastic style, his intricate and complex sentence structure, and his flair for powerfully recreating the searing drama of historical incidents made him a favorite of teachers and pupils alike.

Julius Caesar wrote his exciting Commentaries during some of the most grueling campaigns ever undertaken by a Roman army. The Gallic Wars and The Civil Wars constitute the greatest series of military dispatches ever written. As literature, they are representative of the finest expressions of Latin prose in its "golden" age, a benchmark of elegant style and masculine brevity imitated by young schoolboys for centuries.