Showing results by narrator "Robert Hardy" in All Categories

In these witty and comic stories, Horace Rumpole takes on a variety of clients and activities. He, of course, brings each case to a successful end, all the while quoting poetry and drinking claret.

Charles Strickland, a conventional stockbroker, abandons his wife and children for Paris and Tahiti, to live his life as a painter. While his betrayal of family, duty and honour gives him the freedom to achieve greatness, his decision leads to an obsession which carries severe implications.

Revisit the world of Beatrix Potter in this timeless new audiobook edition. Featuring all 23 of the classic tales, this new collection features a range of award-winning and contemporary voices, including Olivia Colman, Tom Hardy, Lily James, James Acaster, David Harewood and Joanna Lumley. Whether you're looking to relive those treasured moments of your childhood or hoping to share some of your old favourites with your own little ones, there's no storybook world more pleasant than that of Beatrix Potter.

Has Rumpole hung up his wig for good? Can it be? Yes, the beloved barrister is now retired (though far from retiring) and gently ripening to a rosy hue in the Florida sunshine. But a colleague's casual request for advice on a difficult case sends him winging back across the Atlantic, and before he's through, our hero will come up against a fanatical religious cult and a mysterious letter written in blood.

A satiric novel by Evelyn Waugh, published in 1930. Set in England between the wars, the novel examines the frenetic but empty lives of the Bright Young Things, young people who indulge in constant party-going, heavy drinking, and promiscuous sex. At the novel's end, the realities of the world intrude, with Adam Fenwick-Symes, the protagonist, serving on a battlefield at the onset of another world war.

This curated collection of Arthur Conan Doyle’s most beloved Sherlock Holmes tales is read by the incredible Robert Hardy, known to many for playing Cornelius Fudge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

A ruthlessly ambitious Scottish lord siezes the throne with the help of his scheming wife - and a trio of witches. Anthony Quayle, Robert Hardy, Ian Holm, Stanley Holloway, and Jill Balcon star in an unabridged performance of Shakespeare's Macbeth.

The Nutmeg of Consolation opens with Jack Aubrey and his friend the intelligence agent Stephen Maturin stranded, following a shipwreck, on an uninhabited island in the Dutch East Indies, under siege by ferocious Malay pirates. They contrive their escape, but after a change of ship, find themselves caught up in a night chase in fiercly tidal waters and then embroiled in the much more insidious conflicts of the terrifying penal settlements of New South Wales.

A meeting at Oxford University during World War II signalled the beginning of a lifelong friendship between two outstanding contributors to 20th century English literature: Philip Larkin, poet, and Kingsley Amis, the prolific novelist. Selected from correspondence written between 1943 and 1985, these letters offer an entertaining and illuminating insight into the prejudices, exasperations and in-jokes of two literary greats. A linking commentary complements the writers' own words.

The four seasons of the Wessex year form the backdrop for the delightful romance of Dick Dewy and Fancy Day. The ups and downs of their courtship are set alongside the story of the rustics who form the church choir.

Following the success of Catching LIfe by the Throat, Josephine Hart compiles more poetry from the like of such poets as Milton, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Browning, Frost and Lowell.

Read by a dazzling cast of actors including Eileen Atkins, Nancy Carroll, Alan Cox, Charles Dance, Joanna David, Lindsay Duncan, Edward Fox, Emilia Fox, Robert Hardy, Tom Hollander, Jeremy Irons, Felicity Kendal, Elizabeth McGovern, Mark Strong, Dominic West, Greg Wise.

The story picks up from the end of Blue at the Mizzen when Jack Aubrey receives the news, in Chile, of his elevation to flag rank: Rear Admiral of the Blue Squadron, with orders to sail to the South Africa station. This new novel, unfinished and untitled at the time of O’Brian’s death, would have been a chronicle of that mission, and much else besides. As the novel opens, we are able to visit these friends we have followed so very far in a rare state of almost perfect felicity.

Frédéric François Chopin, in Polish Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin was a Polish composer, virtuoso pianist, and music teacher, of French-Polish parentage. Here is the story of Chopin, one of the world's greatest composers, in words and music.

This tale begins with Jack Aubrey arriving home from his exploits in the Mediterranean to find England at peace following the Treaty of Amiens. He and his friend Stephen Maturin, surgeon and secret agent, begin to live the lives of country gentlemen, hunting, entertaining, and enjoying amorous adventures. Their comfortable existence, however, is cut short when Jack is overnight reduced to a pauper with enough debts to keep him in prison for life.

When the elderly Nathaniel Garridebs asks for the assistance of Holmes and Watson in tracking down a man with the same unusual surname in order to secure a great inheritance, what looks to be a simple case quickly descends into a web of mystery and deceit. Robert Hardy, known to many for playing Cornelius Fudge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is the expert reader bringing this thrilling story to vivid life.

With rumours of peace running rampant, Captain Jack Aubrey chances his luck on the stock exchange. However, when his plans go awry, Marshalsea prison awaits. Can Stephen Maturin rescue his friend from a politically motivated trial and the enormity of being stricken from the Navy Lists? When the world has turned its back against you, friendship is all.

An army colonel is found dead in a pool of blood, his wife out cold beside him. The room is locked; the key missing. It’s another classic case for Sherlock Holmes to crack, with secrets to untangle and dark pasts to unearth. Robert Hardy, known to many for playing Cornelius Fudge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is the expert reader bringing this thrilling story to vivid life.

Jack Aubrey is a naval officer, a post-captain of experience and capacity. When The Letter of Marque opens he has been struck off the Navy List for a crime he has not committed. With Aubrey is his friend and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin, who is also an unofficial British intelligence agent.

On half-pay and without a command, Captain Jack Aubrey is stranded at home in an over-crowded cottage with his large and frequently bad-tempered family. When Jack has almost given up hope of ever returning to sea, Stephen Maturin, ship's doctor, occasional intelligence agent, and Jack's closest friend, brings secret orders that Jack is to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a Commodore's pennant.

William Collins Books and Decca Records are proud to present Argo Classics, a historic catalogue of classic fiction read by some of the world’s most renowned voices. Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly abridged and remastered stories are now available to download for the first time. The basis of modern science fiction and fantasy dinosaur adventures, The Lost World is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's journey into the lost prehistoric world.