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English Literature 101

English Literature has a rich and vast history. Sitting down to read all the classics of this literary tradition can seem overwhelming, but listening to the classics on audio book can greatly increase the amount of literature you take in and be more enjoyable. Almost all great English literature is available on audio books complete with free audio books, fantastic dramatic renderings of Shakespeare, and histories of English literature to aid you in your listening.

Authors on this Topic

Jane Austen

Jane Austen is an English writer who added modern character to the novel form by writing about everyday events. She was born in 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire as a daughter of a clergyman and was raised to love literature.

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens is the British writer most associated with England's 19th century Victorian era, and is one of the fathers of the modern novel. Dickens' novels are known for their social commentary, and hard criticism of poverty.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Born in 1859, Arthur Conan Doyle is the author most famous for creating the detective Sherlock Holmes and is renowned as the world's greatest crime fiction writer. With the creation of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle embarked on a series of crime stories that brought new levels of realism to a marginalized genre.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is the British poet and playwright widely considered to be the greatest ever to write in the English language. Indeed, Shakespeare has been voted one of the most important people of the last millennium and all writers are indebted to the vibrant characterization, innovative plotting, and philosophical scope he brought to the art of writing.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish author from the Victorian era most famous for his novels Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Due to an illness that began in childhood and left the author extraordinarily thin and somewhat eccentric, Stevenson had difficulty fitting in throughout his life.

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde was a well renowned poet and playwright in 19th century England. Born in Dublin in 1854 Wilde left his homeland to study at Oxford University. While a student at Oxford, Wilde gained accolades as he received the Newdegate Prize for his poem "Ravenna" describing his feelings about the Italian city of the same name.

Titles on this Topic

1984
by George Orwell

Blackstone Audio presents a new recording of this dramatically popular book.

Bard of the Middle Ages: The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer
by Michael Drout

Had Geoffrey Chaucer not written, or not written so well, the last 600 years of English literature would have been decidedly different. His creative style and use of language served as one of the primary foundations on which later writers built.

Barron's EZ 101 Study Keys: English Literature
by Benjamin W. Griffith

English Literature covers the key themes, quotations, and literary terms for your introductory college course.

Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley

Cloning, feel-good drugs, anti-aging programs, and total social control through politics, programming...

A Brief History of English and American Literature
by Henry Beers

Henry Augustin Beers has written a sweeping thousand 900 year history of English literature, up to the end of the 19th century.

C.S. Lewis Literature Overview
by Timothy B. Shutt

In this lecture professor Timothy Shutt provides an overview of the life and literature of C.S. Lewis. He mentions various viewpoints that people have had about Lewis and says why he thinks Lewis is more popular now than he was in his time.

The Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey Chaucer

In this classic, the narrator tells of making the usual April pilgrimage to Becketâ€™s shrine at Canterbury with thirty others.

The Chronicles of Narnia
by C.S. Lewis

Journeys to the end of the world, fantastic creatures, and epic battles between good and evil -- what more could any reader ask for? This timeless boxed set includes all seven unabridged recordings...

D. H. Lawrence in 90 Minutes
by Paul Strathern

D. H. Lawrences works were an attempt to revive some vivid, instinctual part of the human spirit that he felt had been lost or damaged. Strathern offers a witty and incisive appraisal of the writer and his work.

Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley

The legacy of Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, one of the most famous of the English Gothic novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, lives on through the modern cultural icons of the mad scientist and the demonic creation that always seem to threaten to destroy humankind.

The Giants of Irish Literature: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce and Beckett
by George O'Brien

Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett: These four masters of Irish literature created works of startling innovation and unparalleled literary merit.

The Great Poets: William Blake
by William Blake

Naxos AudioBooks begins its new series of Great Poets with William Blake.

Hamlet: John Gielgud's Classic 1948 Recording
by William Shakespeare

This outstanding historical recording made in 1941 for radio is widely regarded as one of the finest Hamlet performances ever, and one of John Gielgud's greatest moments.

Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad

"Heart of Darkness" was first published in 1902. In this novella, Joseph Conrad explores morality and human nature.

Heaven in a Wild Flower: The British Romantic Poets
by Adam Potkay

Professor Adam Potkay brings his renowned expertise on the Romantic era to bear on the periodâ€™s principal poets.

The History of English Literature
by Perry Keenlyside

English literature may very well be the greatest body of imaginative writing the world has yet seen...

The Importance of Being Earnest
by Oscar Wilde

This final play from the pen of Oscar Wilde is a stylish send-up of Victorian courtship and manners, complete with assumed names, mistaken lovers, and a lost handbag.

Introduction to Poetry
by Robert Frost

LearnOutLoud.com presents an Introduction to Poetry covering famous poems by great poets throughout the history of English poetry.

King Lear
by William Shakespeare

King Lear is one of Shakespeareâ€™s greatest and darkest works. King Lear banishes his favorite daughter when she speaks out against him.

Lewis & Tolkien
by Christopher Mitchell

In this streaming video released by UCTV, we are given a glimpse of the friendship between renowned authors C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Lord of the Flies
by William Golding

An adventure tale in its purest form. A thrilling and elegantly told account of a group of British schoolboys marooned on a tropical island.

Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens

Rife with Dickens' disturbing descriptions of street life, the novel is buoyed by the purity of the orphan Oliver.

Othello
by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare's legendary tragedy is revisited in this spirited and entertaining production that ran in London from November 2007 to February 2008.

Paradise Lost
by John Milton

This epic poem, considered the greatest in the English language, as John Milton seeks to â€œjustify the ways of God to menâ€ through relating the story of Satanâ€™s rebellion in Heaven, the deception and fall of Man, and the presaged event of Redemption through Jesus, the Son of Godâ€¦the â€œSecond Adam.â€

The Pilgrim's Progress
by John Bunyan

This is an updated version for all ages told in wonderful storytelling fashion. John Bunyan was a simple maker and mender of pots and pans who received very little education. In spite of that, he penned the most successful allegory ever written.

A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man
by James Joyce

A remarkably rich study of a developing young mind, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man made an indelible mark on literature and confirmed Joyce's reputation as one of the world's greatest and lasting writers.

Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice captures the affections of class-conscious eighteenth-century English families with matrimonial aims and rivalries.

Romeo and Juliet
by William Shakespeare

Speak the Speech makes free Shakespearean performance more widely accessible than ever, in the style of radio theater!

A Room with a View
by E.M. Forster

E.M. Forster's A Room with a View tells the story of two young lovers torn apart by extreme social divisions in early 20th century Europe.

The Screwtape Letters
by C.S. Lewis

This classic has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to â€œOur Father Below.â€

Shakespeare: Ten Great Comedies
by Raphael Shargel

Professor Raphael Shargel channels his passion for teaching and expertise as a Shakespearean scholar into this illuminative study of the Immortal Bardâ€™s ten great comedies.

Shakespeare: The Seven Major Tragedies
by Harold Bloom

Shakespeare's seven great tragedies contain unmistakable elements that set them apart from any other plays ever written. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare embodied in the character of Juliet the world's most impressive representation ever of a woman in love.

A Study Guide to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
by Richard Kaye, Ph.D.

The classic story of 19th-century man's attempt to control nature through science has remained...

A Tale of Two Cities Podcast
by Charles Dickens

Check out this free unabridged professional recording of A Tale of Two Cities, released by Literal Systems. Listen to this sweeping historical novel set in London and Paris around the time of the French Revolution.

The World of George Orwell
by Michael Shelden

Big Brother Is Watching You: The words are inextricably associated with the classic dystopian novel 1984 and with its revered author, George Orwell.

Wuthering Heights
by Emily Bronte

More than just a love story, this convincing, unsentimental novel is one of the classics of English...

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English Literature 101

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