In January 1817, Jane Austen commenced work on a new novel, to which she never assigned a name. By mid-March, she had completed twelve chapters, at which time she ceased working due to illness. The unfinished work was eventually published in 1925 under its working title: Fragment of a Novel Written by Jane Austen, January–March 1817. It has since become known simply as Sanditon, and a number of completions by other authors have since been published. Mr. and Mrs. Parker are visiting Sanditon, a village on the coast of Sussex. Unfortunately, Mr. Parker suffers an injury but he receives assistance from a local farmer, Mr Heywood. The latter’s daughter, Charlotte, is of marriageable age and has three eligible suitors, including the son of local patron, Lady Denham. Lady Denham is very keen to find a suitable match for her son Sir Edward—one of Charlotte’s suitors. Accordingly, she seeks an introduction with a Miss Lambe, a wealthy young heiress from the West Indies who is to take lodgings at Sanditon. Meanwhile, Charlotte finds herself attracted to the witty and debonair Sydney. The narrative ceases at this point, with little indication about the final results of the various romantic encounters. However, it appears clear that Charlotte is intended to be the heroine of the story.

Sanditon

Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, and As You Like It are usually regarded as Shakespeare’s crowning achievements in the world of mirth and humor. In this group of plays, written during the playwright’s Second Period (1595–1600), the author depicts chiefly the cheerful, energetic side of life. In As You Like It, a wicked Duke expels his virtuous brother, the lawful ruler, from his domains. The banished Duke takes refuge with his followers in the Forest of Arden, where they live as free a life as did Robin Hood and his merry men. They are presently sought out by the Duke’s daughter Rosalind and her cousin Celia, who have been banished by the usurper. Also among the banished is Orlando, a virtuous young man, who is being pursued by his wicked brother Oliver, pursuant to the orders of the usurping duke. Orlando and Rosalind immediately fall in love, and she, disguised as a boy under the name of Ganymede, makes sport with him throughout the play. Eventually all ends happily – with conversions, repentance and revelations of love. Featuring the voices of Linda Barrans, Blaise Doran, Laura Richcreek, Emma Faye, Claudia Anglade, P J Morgan, Gary MacFadden, Denis Daly, Marty Krz, Dara Brown, Trisha Rose, John Burlinson, and Kendra Murray. Audio edited by Denis Daly Tunes for songs provided by Alan Weyman. The text used for this performance was kindly provided by playshakespeare.com. Production copyright 2024 is held by Voices of Today.

As You Like It

Persuasion was the last novel completed by Jane Austen and was first published posthumously in December, 1817. The story represents an interesting configuration of Austen’s characteristic narrative patterns. The heroine, Anne Eliot, is something of an old maid—she is twenty-seven years old, still single and is considered by family and friends to have lost her youthful beauty. Several years earlier, her engagement to Captain Frederick Wentworth had been broken off, due to the insistence of her family that the Captain lacked the wealth and status needed in a suitable husband. Due to the improvidence of Anne’s snobbish father, Sir Walter Elliot, it becomes necessary to rent out the family estate at Kellynch Hall. The Elliots take up residence in Bath. Anne and Frederick meet again, and Anne is faced with a difficult choice between suitors: should she align herself with the honest and upright but socially awkward Frederick Wentworth? Or with her charming, wealthy, and devious cousin, William Elliot?

Persuasion

Emily Dickinson was one of the most reclusive of all poets. She spent much of her life in seclusion in her father’s house in Amherst, and only a handful of her 1800 poems were published in her lifetime. Credit for the posthumous publication of her work must be given to her editor and friend Thomas W. Higginson, who reported that, in spite of the voluminous correspondence which passed between himself and Dickinson, he only met her twice in person. Dickinson’s poems are all short; few of them exceed twenty lines. Within her writing, the most mundane events of domestic life appear as events of momentous significance. The original editors of this collection write that, “The main quality of these poems is that of extraordinary grasp and insight, uttered with an uneven vigor, sometimes exasperating, seemingly wayward, but really unsought and inevitable.”

Poems of Emily Dickinson – Series 1

This collection arguably contains some of the most charming lyrics ever written in English. The childlike simplicity and trust of these artless verses are unique. Blake’s poems can be enjoyed, not only for their historical importance in an age which was fiercely proud of its genius and its traditions, but also for their simple and beautiful expression of “two contrary states of the human soul.” Songs of Innocence was originally a complete collection of twenty-three poems, first printed in 1789. In 1794, a composite collection entitled Songs of Innocence and of Experience, containing forty-seven poems, was published.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience

This is the story of Morning Glory’s turn of the century kenbutsu—her travels to America. Guided by her uncle, a Harvard graduate, Morning Glory travels at a time when most Americans know little or nothing about Japan, aside from the popular tunes of The Mikado (1885) and The Geisha (1896). Morning Glory is young, fanciful, and full of attitude. An aspiring poet, she writes grand poetry, and even a diary for a local squirrel. She worries about her inadequate grammar, her clothes, her ignorance of Longfellow, the clumsy American cutlery, and the awful smell of cheese. This story was originally published in two installments in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Monthly Magazine in 1901, and was later republished as a book. It was the first English-language American novel published in the US by a Japanese writer.

The American Diary of a Japanese Girl

Sam the sheep lives in a field somewhere in England. It’s a quiet life, but he has his friends, his favorite tree, and still manages to have the occasional adventure. As well as curious and philosophical Sam, we meet Morag the grumpy tabby cat; Ava the tiny fox, brave and determined; Liam the beetle with a dream; Terry the house-proud Terrapin; Boris the bee; and Watt the scary dog (or is he?). In this story, Sam meets some actors, makes new friends, and even takes part in a play. Performed by the author, with Cate Barratt as the voice of Morag. To read along, visit Sam the Sheep on Facebook @SamwellSheep.

Sam Stories

Sam Takes the Stage

Much Ado About Nothing appears to have been written around 1599, shortly before As You Like It and Twelfth Night. The action combines two narrative threads: the spirited comedy of the courtship of Benedick and Beatrice, and the sombre tale of confused love between Hero and Claudio. The first is a creation by Shakespeare and the second appears to have been drawn from an Italian source, either by Bandello or Ariosto. The action takes place in Messina. Eponymous lovers Hero and Claudio seem to be ideally matched and nearly everyone is looking forward to their impending marriage. The odd man out is the sinister Don John, brother and former enemy of Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon, but recently restored to the Prince’s favour. Being of a morose and jealous temperament, Don John plots to disrupt the wedding and cause division between the lovers, with the aid of his fellow conspirators, Borachio and Conrade. However, this evil plan is thwarted by an unexpected incursion by the bumbling constables Dogberry and Verges. The young couple are finally reunited, but only after Claudio has first been led to believe that his rejected spouse, Hero, has died of shame and grief. The matching of Beatrice and Benedick, encouraged by some artful chicanery by Hero and Claudio, and marked by many witty and sardonic exchanges of repartee, serves to lighten the texture of the darker elements of the action. Featuring Emma Faye as Hero, Kendra Murray as Beatrice, Dara Brown as Claudio, Lillian Rachel as Benedick, Cate Barratt as Dogberry, and Gary Macfadden as Don John. Also featuring the voices of Catherine Bilson, Ron Altman, Alan Weyman, P J Morgan, Claudio Anglade, John Burlinson and Linda Barrans. Songs arranged by Alan Weyman Audio edited by Denis Daly Text kindly provided by playshakespeare.com

Much Ado About Nothing

Sam the sheep is having a hard time. He is pining for Ava the fox, and his actor friends are away performing their play without him. What’s more, someone has decided to build a Community Centre in the next field, and the noise is simply terrible. One of the builders has deeply offended Morag the Tabby Cat, and she is starting a Resistance movement—though why she thinks there are gorillas in the field is anybody’s guess. Watt the dog is in trouble as usual; Erin the hedgehog has upset the bees; and a pair of demented squirrels is racing around on a zip line. It seems everyone is having problems. How is one grumpy little sheep supposed to sort out all of this? Performed by the author, with Cate Barratt as the voice of Morag. To read along, visit Sam the Sheep on Facebook, @SamwellSheep.

Sam and the Resistance

This collection contains eight of Shakespeare’s best loved comedies. Each exhibits the vigour, humour, and optimism of the young master before he turned to the gloom and bitterness of the great tragedies. Contents A Midsummer Night’s Dream All’s Well That Ends Well Twelfth Night Much Ado About Nothing The Comedy of Errors As You Like It Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice Featuring the voices of:Aisling Gray, Alan Weyman, Alexandra Lee Smith, Blaise Doran, Cate Barratt, Catherine Bilson, Claudia Anglade, Dara Brown, David Shears, Denis Daly, Emma Faye, Gary D. MacFadden, Graham Scott, John Burlinson, Josh Innerst, Kendra Murray, Laura Richcreek, Lillian Rachel, Linda Barrans, Mark Crowle-Groves, Marty Krz, PJ Morgan, Roberta Jackson, Ron Altman, Simon Paxton, Susan Iannucci, Tom Saer, and Trisha Rose. Texts kindly provided by playshakespeare.com Songs created and arranged by Alan Weyman and Marty Krz Audio edited by Denis Daly

Eight Shakespeare Comedies

The unlikely heroine of this novel is the bashful and unadventurous Fanny Price, who occupies a Cinderella-like position in the residence of her wealthy cousins, the Bertrams, at Mansfield Park. Fanny is the butt of ridicule for the young Bertram sisters (Maria and Julia), and is relentlessly bullied by her manipulative and penny-pinching aunt, the widowed Mrs Norris. Maria, Julia, and their brother Tom are symbols of social irresponsibility, while their brother Edmund, is earnest and upright. Although Sir Thomas Bertram’s wealth is derived largely from a sugar plantation in the West Indies, Austen largely avoids discussion of slavery and other evils of colonialism. The young Bertrams form a close friendship with the dashing and unscrupulous Henry Crawford, and his glamorous sister Mary. Henry decides to pursue Fanny with a view to marriage, but she, discerning his devious nature, resists all his advances. After a visit to her family in Portsmouth, Fanny returns to Mansfield Park and finds herself attracted to the worthy Edmund, who is recovering after being rejected by Mary Crawford. Interestingly, Mansfield Park features the abortive amateur production of a popular sentimental drama, Lovers’ Vows, planned by members and friends of the Bertram family while Sir Thomas is absent in the West Indies. His unexpected return brings these plans to an abrupt halt. This audiobook recording also includes a multicast presentation of Lovers’ Vows. In Lovers’ Vows, the widowed Baron Wildenheim, by a twist of circumstances, comes into contact with a poor woman whom he had abandoned while a young man. The Baron has since married a wealthy woman and they have a daughter, Amelia. Unbeknownst to the Baron, his first relationship resulted in the birth of a son. He now has to decide how he is to acknowledge his new-found son and the young man’s mother. At the time of its publication, the plot was considered controversial because it centered on the issue of illegitimate children.

Mansfield Park and Lovers’ Vows

This epistolary novel was probably written in 1794, but was not published until 1871. Lady Susan Vernon, middle-aged and recently widowed, has retained her looks and appealing vivacity. She makes use of her bereavement and her loss of wealth by imposing herself on the hospitality of relatives, and by amusing herself in flirtation with the various men who fall under her spell. Lady Susan has a daughter, Frederica, who is bashful and innocent—in stark contrast to her unfeeling and manipulative mother. Her mother is anxious to marry Frederica off to a spouse of appropriate wealth and social standing, and also, perhaps, to capture a new mate for herself. The forty-one letters between the various parties in this tale of twisted courtship describe Lady Susan’s path to marital satisfaction for her daughter and herself.

Lady Susan

This play is a dramatization of Boccaccio’s story of Gillette of Narbonne. Only the comic parts were of Shakespeare’s invention; he added the characters of the pusillanimous Parolles, the lofty courtier Lafew, the Clown Lavatch, and the long suffering Countess. He gave new depth and vitality to the leading characters, who are mere outlines in Boccaccio’s tale. The comedy has for its heroine a young woman who loves the haughty Bertram with an unrequited and despised passion, cures the King of France of a dangerous sickness, claims as her reward the right to choose a husband from among the courtiers, chooses Bertram, is repudiated by him, and, after a nocturnal meeting at which she takes the place of another woman whom he believes himself to have seduced, at last overcomes his resistance and is acknowledged as his wife. In Helena, Shakespeare drew a portrait of familiar type of loving and cruelly maltreated womanhood—the woman who suffers everything in inexhaustible tenderness and humility, and never falters in her love until in the end she wins the rebellious heart.

Alls Well That Ends Well

As the generating force of its plot, Twelfth Night uses a device which has since become a staple in comedy: gender confusion. Viola and her twin brother Sebastian, are shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria, a country ruled by the melancholy Duke Orsino. The twins are separated and Viola is led to believe that her brother has perished. She disguises herself as a male under the name of Cesario and makes her way to the ducal court, where Orsino employs her as a messenger, to communicate his love to the reclusive lady, Olivia—who is not willing to return his affection. Olivia is also the target of two other romantic schemes. Her pompous steward, Malvolio, has persuaded himself that Olivia has fallen for him but is too diffident to reveal her passion. Her dissipated uncle, Sir Toby Belch, has plans to set up a match for her with Sir Andrew Aguecheek, a feeble-minded squire. Viola/Cesario falls in love with Orsino and Olivia with Cesario, but all of the parties are obliged to hide their feelings. Having survived the shipwreck, Sebastian now appears on the scene and contracts a secret marriage with Olivia, who believes him to be Cesario. In the final act, Viola reveals her true identity … Featuring Emma Faye as Viola, Kendra Murray as Olivia, Cate Barratt as Sir Toby Belch, Alan Weyman as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Lillian Rachel as Malvolio, Marty Krz as Feste and Laura Richcreek as Orsino. Also featuring the voices of Claudia Anglade, Linda Barrans, PJ Morgan, Denis Daly and John Burlinson. Songs arranged by Alan Weyman and Marty Krz Audio edited by Denis Daly Text kindly provided by playshakespeare.com

Twelfth Night

This collection of 35 short poems was first published in 1927, and is a sequel to When We Were Very Young, which was the first anthology of verse dealing with the domestic adventures of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh. As the author explains in the introduction: “We have been nearly three years writing this book. We began it when we were very young … and now we are six. So, of course, bits of it seem rather baby-ish to us, almost as if they had slipped out of some other book by mistake. So we want you to know that the name of the book doesn’t mean that this is us being six all the time, but that it is about as far as we’ve got at present, and we half think of stopping there.”

Now We Are Six

Jane Austen probably commenced writing The Watsons in 1803 and discontinued it after her father’s death in 1805. The original text contains no chapter divisions. It was first published in 1871 as an appendix to A Memoir of Jane Austen, by the novelist’s nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh. The story concerns the young and vivacious Emma Watson, one of six children of a widowed clergyman. Emma has spent most of her life under the care of a wealthy aunt of liberal views, and has received a good education. However, when her aunt enters into a second marriage, Emma is forced to return to the family home, where she is affronted by the crass hunting for husbands undertaken her sisters, Penelope and Margaret. Emma herself attracts the notice of local nobleman, Lord Osborne, and also of Mr. Howard, vicar of the nearby parish church. The sisters are invited to visit the home of their brother, Robert, an attorney in Croydon, but Emma refuses to join them. The original text concludes at this point. Several completions of the novel have been composed after the author’s death. The first appeared in 1850, and was written by her niece, Catherine Hubback, who expanded the story into a three volume novel entitled, The Younger Sister. In 1923, the completion by L. Oulton was published. And in 1928, another completion appeared, this time written the granddaughter of Catherine Hubback, Emily Brown, and her husband Francis Brown. In the version completed by Oulton, the narrative concludes with a resolution fairly typical of an Austen novel. However, the full text is considerably shorter than any of the novels completed by the Austen. There has been much speculation as to why Austen discontinued writing the novel. One surmise is that the author may have felt the narrative was uncomfortably close to the events of her own life.

The Watsons

Many of the stories in this book seem at the same time both familiar and strange. Their authors valued family, duty, patience and heroism. They longed for children in their old age, and rejoiced when they saw cruelty and envy punished, wrongs righted, and kindness and bravery rewarded. These ideas are recognized the world over. What makes the stories different is partly the characters: the brave samurai, the evil wizards; the fantastical creatures – goblins, dragons, demons, fairies; the cunning talking animals – not only sparrows, badgers and rabbits, but crocodiles and jellyfish too. You may feel you know what is coming when the hero is told not, under any circumstance, to open the box – or when the doting father takes a second wife, a wicked stepmother. There is even one tale where the new wife sends a servant to take the daughter into the woods and dispose of her (sound familiar?). Though the ideas are tried and trusted, the journey is fresh and new. Not only because the heroes ride on paper cranes or tortoises that swim under the sea – but because the destination may not be what you expect. There is even more than one story where the wicked woman repents her evil ways and goes on to live a good and kind life.

Japanese Fairy Tales

Sense and Sensibility follows the fortunes of sensible Elinor and her volatile younger sister, Marianne, as each searches for a spouse—a quest made urgent by the family’s financial embarrassment. While Elinor pursues the heart of clergyman, Edward Ferrars, Marianne impulsively falls in love with a glamorous but unscrupulous adventurer, Willoughby. Elinor sees trouble brewing but the enraptured Marianne does not. The sisters question each other’s choices in love. More than in her other novels, Austen here includes portraits of ill-matched couples, such as the avaricious Fanny Dashwood and her hen-pecked husband John; and the daffy Charlotte Palmer and her gloomy and contemptuous spouse. Perhaps Austen here suggests that, while marriage seems inevitable for most people, conjugal happiness can be much harder to find. Sense and Sensibility (written by ‘a lady’) was first published in 1811. It is a complete re-writing of Austen’s earlier epistolary novel, Elinor and Marianne.

Sense and Sensibility

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