Showing results by narrator "Anton Lesser" in All Categories

Abridged edition. C. J. Sansom's bestselling adventures of Matthew Shardlake continue in the fourth title of the series, the haunting Revelation. Spring, 1543. King Henry VIII is wooing Lady Catherine Parr, whom he wants for his sixth wife. But this time the object of his affections is resisting...

A master of the psychological crime genre, Patricia Highsmith is most famous for her quintet of best-selling Ripley novels, and her groundbreaking thriller Strangers on a Train (notably adapted as a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock). This extensive collection encompasses her best-known works, as well as selected short stories and three programmes about the author herself and her greatest creation, charismatic anti-hero Tom Ripley.

Abridged edition. Winner of the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, Dark Fire is the second thrilling historical crime novel in the Shardlake series by C. J. Sansom. It is 1540 and the hottest summer of the sixteenth century. Matthew Shardlake, believing himself out of favour with Thomas...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in collaboration with his friend, William Wordsworth, revolutionized English poetry. In 1798 they produced their Lyrical Ballads, poems of imagination and reflection using "the language of men" - pointing the way forward for a generation of Romantic poets.

"It was the best of times and the worst of times." In one of the most famous openings of any novel, Dickens masterfully presents the turmoil of the French Revolution, which is the backdrop for a novel of love, patience, hope, and self-sacrifice. This version is read by Anton Lesser, whose award-winning Dickens recordings in their abridged form has now resulted in the opportunity to read the full unabridged text.

A master of Russian realism, Anton Chekhov is renowned for his meticulously observed plays and short stories exploring the human condition, in all its joys and sorrows. Included here are six of his best-known dramas, as well as Michael Frayn's adaptation of Wild Honey, drawn from an early, untitled Chekhov play; and one documentary exploring Chekhov's life and work. 

Jeffrey Archer, one of the greatest popular novelists of our generation, delivers a truly page-turning thriller in False Impression. When an aristocratic old lady is brutally murdered in her country home the night before 9/11, it takes all the resources of the FBI and Interpol to work out the...

Abridged edition. Heartstone is C. J. Sansom's fifth spellbinding mystery in the Shardlake series. Summer, 1545. England is at war. Henry VIII's invasion of France has gone badly wrong, and a massive French fleet is preparing to sail across the Channel. As the English fleet gathers at Portsmouth...

Michael Henchard, drunk at a country fair, sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas. The following day, in despair and remorse, he forswears alcohol and sets out to redeem himself. In time, he becomes a respected merchant and eventually the mayor of the town. But Fate is not to be so easily appeased, and Henchard finds his past actions resonate through and destroy his plans for the future.

Hard Times is Dickens's most political novel. Set in the industrial north of England, in Coketown, he examines the lives of working people, who are taught by the capitalists Gradgrind and Bounderby to think only of the facts of life and not to indulge in imagination. Gradgrind’s own children have been so educated and as a result are dysfunctional and disconnected from their feelings. Only the travelling circus company of Sleary seems to offer any hope of humanity in Coketown.

A full-cast dramatisation of the bestselling Biblical adventure story by Lloyd C. Douglas Weary of governing, the half-crazed Emperor Tiberius retreats to Capri, leaving his loathsome stepson, Prince Gaius, in charge of an increasingly corrupt Rome. Few dare speak out against him – so when...

The Trojan War is over, and Odysseus, the cunning King of Ithaca, sets out for home, his wife Penelope, and his son, Telemachus. It proves a long, 10-year journey, fraught with dangers.

Angela Carter was one of the most important writers of the 20th century. A pioneer of British magical realism, her work was described by Salman Rushdie as 'without rival and without equal'. Her radical, inventive novels influenced countless writers, while her dark, sensual short fiction turned traditional fables inside out, giving women the power over their desires and fates. Susannah Clapp, Angela Carter's literary executor and friend, introduces the productions and offers fascinating insights into Angela Carter's life and work.

Full-cast dramatisations of six masterpieces from the founding fathers of dystopian fiction Dark and disturbing, provocative and prescient, dystopian literature has long captured our imagination with its nightmarish visions of forbidding future worlds. Included here are six classic novels of...

Johann Wolfgang Goethe was a colossus of German literature and a true Renaissance man. A novelist, dramatist, poet, humanist, scientist and philosopher, he wrote the first international bestseller, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and his epic masterpiece Faust is one of the most famous and celebrated dramas of all time.

Shortlisted for the British Book Awards, Author of the Year, 2007.
Winner of the British Book Awards, Richard and Judy Best Read of the Year, 2006.
In Carcassonne a young girl is given a mysterious book by her father which he claims contains the secret of the true Grail. Although Alais cannot understand the strange words and symbols hidden within, she knows that her destiny lies in protecting it.

Now comes the book every fantasy reader has been waiting for. It's 10 years later, and Linden Avery thought she would never see the Land, or Covenant, again. But Lord Foul has stolen her adopted son, and is unmaking the very laws of nature. And though she believes Covenant dead, he keeps sending Linden messages: "Find me", and "Don't trust me". The Land is in turmoil, and Lord Foul has plans for them all.

Riddle of the Sands is set during the long suspicious years leading up to the First World War and is a classic of spy fiction.

Anton Lesser stars as a Berlin detective who stumbles upon the 20th century's most terrifying secret in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Robert Harris's bestselling novel. The year is 1964, and it's a week before Hitler's 75th birthday. Nazi Germany won the Second World War...

It's 2116, and Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson are token rebels in an irretrievably corrupted society where promiscuity is the norm, eugenics a respectable science, and morality turned upside down. There is no poverty, crime or sickness - but no creativity, art or culture either. Human beings are merely docile citizens: divided into castes, brainwashed and controlled by the state and dependent on the drug soma for superficial gratification.