LibriVox

Download and listen to this full cast recording of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Hear the love story of Romeo, son of Montague, and Juliet, daughter of Capulet, as they fall in love despite their feuding families.

Drawing on Danish chronicles and the Elizabethan vogue for revenge tragedy, Shakespeare created a play that is at once a philosophic treatise, a family drama, and a supernatural thriller.

King Lear is widely held as the greatest of Shakespeare’s tragedies; to some, it is the greatest play ever written.

It's a delightful satire of Victorian society with Wilde's theme being: "That we should treat all trivial things in life very seriously, and all serious things of life with a sincere and studied triviality."

Magic, fairies, young lovers chasing each other through a forest, a man with a donkey's head, and impish Puck wreaking havoc right and left. What's going on here? It's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare at his most fanciful.

Pygmalion (1913) is a play by George Bernard Shaw based on the Greek myth of the same name. It tells the story of Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics (based on phonetician Henry Sweet), who makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can successfully pass off a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, as a refined society lady by teaching her how to speak with an upper class accent and training her in etiquette.

In this recording, one person reads the entire play, all parts, including the stage directions. Even without the support of Arthur Sullivan’s music and the interpretation of actors, the consummate silliness of Gilbert’s libretto entertains.

Lilli Lehmann, born Elisabeth Maria Lehmann, was a German operatic soprano of phenomenal versatility. She was also a voice teacher.

The Tragedy of King Richard II, by William Shakespeare, is the first of the history series that continues with Parts 1 and 2 of King Henry IV and with The Life of King Henry V.

The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in May 1849, is an extended essay written by the English art critic and theorist John Ruskin.