Showing results by narrator "Robin Field" in All Categories

Once upon a time there were two princes who were twins... begins Charles Kingsley in his 1856 rendering of Greek mythological heroes for children. Featuring the many exploits of Perseus, Jason and the Argonauts, and Theseus, this timeless collection of myths is a rich tapestry of adventure celebrated in early Greek lore. Kingsley’s Heroes is a classic book that will please listeners of all ages.

Working at a plantation in his youth, Joel Chandler Harris found that much of his shyness disappeared in the slave QTLYters, and his background as the illegitimate son of an Irish immigrant helped fuse a close bond with the slaves. The language of his new friends and the African-American animal tales they shared later became the inspiration for Joel’s beloved Uncle Remus stories.

These stories display Twain's place in American letters as a master writer in the authentic native idiom. He was exuberant and irreverent, but underlying the humor was a vigorous desire for social justice and a pervasive equalitarian attitude.

First published in 1873, The Gilded Age is both a biting satire and a revealing portrait of post-Civil War America - an age of corruption when crooked land speculators, ruthless bankers, and dishonest politicians voraciously took advantage of the nation's peacetime optimism. With his characteristic wit and perception, Mark Twain and his collaborator, Charles Dudley Warner, attack the greed, lust, and naiveté of their own time in a work that endures as a valuable social document and one of America's most important satirical novels.

Franklin’s Autobiography, one of the most regarded works in early American literature, began as a private collection of anecdotes for his son, but was soon transformed from reflective personal journaling into a work of national history. Filled with the inimitable nuances & wit of the inventor, philosopher, scientist and statesman, this engaging narration of Benjamin Franklin’s classic is as certain to delight modern readers as it did with his original audience.

Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology, published in three parts from 1794, was a best seller in America, where it caused a short-lived deistic revival. Promoting a creator-God while advocating reason in the place of revelation, Paine’s controversial pamphlet caused his native British audience, fearing the results of the French Revolution, to receive it with more hostility than their American counterparts.

One of the great innovators in American letters, Walt Whitman created a daringly new kind of poetry that became a major force in world literature. Leaves of Grass is his masterpiece, written in a pure, uninhibited style, combining sensual and mystical sensibilities. Its bold, joyous voice, its expansive optimism, and its transcendental vision made it uniquely American.

A collection of letters Mark Twain wrote for a newspaper publication - from a long, turbulent journey to the island to his encounters with the islanders and the myriad Englishmen who have taken up residence on the island.

Born in 1628, Parisian Charles Perrault was aptly credited as being the “father” of a then-new literary genre: the fairy tale. Often drawing from his own surroundings (the Chateau Ussé was the model for Sleeping Beauty, while the Marquis of the Château d'Oiron inspired the delightful Puss-in-Boots), Perrault originally penned the tales as moral stories for his own three children.

First published by brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm in 1812 as a collection of retold Germanic folk stories, this collection of such well-known fairytales as Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty transports listeners to a realm where “Once upon a time” often ends up “happily ever after”…and where giants, princesses, kings and fairies pursue power, find true love, have all sorts of magical adventures — and in the process reveal multi-faceted truths about human nature.

The classic story, told in the first person by Jim Hawkins, whose mother kept the Admiral Benbow Inn, and who shared in the adventures from start to finish. An old sea dog comes to this peaceful inn one day, apparently intending to finish his life there. He hires Jim to keep a watch out for other sailors, but despite all precautions, he is hunted out and served with the black spot that means death. Jim and his mother barely escape death when Blind Pew, Black Dog, and other pirates descend on the inn in search of the sea dog’s papers. Jim snatches up a packet of papers to square the sailor’s debt, when they were forced to retreat from the inn.

Dedicating the book "to my good friend & comrade, My Wife," L. Frank Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, and it went on to become perhaps one of the most successful tales in the history of American children’s literature. Listeners new to the story and longtime fans alike will delight to join Dorothy and her friends in this timeless tale of the quest for courage, love, and a longing for Home.

Mark Twain spills his wit and whimsical sense of humor into his novel The Diaries of Adam and Eve. The story tells of the events that took place in the Garden of Eden prior to the entrance of the deceitful serpent. Adam and Eve are not exactly getting along. Through the struggles listed in their diaries, one can safely assume that these two very different human beings are each other’s greatest source of frustration.

Is Shakespeare Dead? is a short, semi-autobiographical work by American humorist Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. It explores the controversy over the authorship of the Shakespearean literary canon via satire, anecdote, and extensive quotation of contemporary authors on the subject. The original publication spans only 150 pages, and the formatting leaves roughly half of each page blank. The spine is thread bound. It was published in April of 1909 by Harper & Brothers, 12 months before Mark Twain's death.

After the young Prince Edward VI of England and a peasant boy switch places, the "little king" tries to escape from a world in which he must beg for food, sleep with rodents, face ridicule, and avoid assassination. Meanwhile, the peasant, who is now the prince, dreads exposure and possible execution; members of the Court believe he has gone mad. As a result of the swap, both boys learn that social class, like so much of life, is determined by chance and random circumstance. With his caustic wit and biting irony, Twain satirizes the power of the monarchy, superstitions, and religious intolerance.

Huckleberry Finn may be the greater book, but Tom Sawyer has always been more widely read. Moreover, it is a book that can be enjoyed equally by both children and adults. Twain, who called it a "hymn" to boyhood.

In A Tramp Abroad, the ever adventurous Mark Twain brings his wit and creativity to his travels in Europe. Twain takes fictional liberty, turning his travels into an entertaining journey as he visits many of the countries of Central Europe. Listeners are sure to be delighted and humored as they enjoy what is considered by many to be one of Mark Twain's best works.

Plato's dialogue in the Symposium, which has as its topic the subject of love, explores the idea of love as a means of ascent to contemplation of the Divine. For Plato, generally, to love other human beings is to direct one's mind to love of Divinity. One proceeds from recognition of another's beauty to appreciation of Beauty as it exists apart from any individual, to consideration of Divinity, the source of Beauty, to love of Divinity.

In the twilight of the Roman Empire, a sculptor struggles to keep an 800-year dream alive while honoring the love of his life and raising his adopted son. Part I of the epic five-part Idolatry series, the story of a wealthy young heir and a devout Christian girl who find themselves at the heart of a 2,400-year struggle for the soul of Western Civilization.

This 1896 novel follows the Mark Twain series of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894). Tom finds himself on another exciting adventure as he serves as detective for a mysterious murder in the banks of the Mississippi. Listen to this suspenseful, yet whimsical story of Tom and Huckleberry and be fascinated once again with Mark Twain’s imagination.