Classic Audiobook Collection

The Diary of a Superfluous Man by Ivan Turgenev audiobook.
Genre: drama
Written as a final confession, The Diary of a Superfluous Man follows a minor Russian landowner, Chulkaturin, who begins a diary when he senses his life is nearing its close. Alone with his thoughts, he looks back on the moments that shaped him: a youth spent observing rather than acting, a sharp awareness of his own awkwardness in society, and a longing to matter in a world that seems to have no place for him. His memories gather around a pivotal summer in the country, where a bright young woman, the routines of provincial visits, and the arrival of a more confident rival pull him into a quiet but devastating emotional contest. As Chulkaturin records each recollection, the diary becomes both a portrait of love and jealousy and a self-indictment of paralysis, pride, and self-deception. Turgenev's classic novella captures the ache of unrealized potential and the loneliness of a man who can describe life with piercing clarity, yet struggles to truly live it.

Chapters (Approximate)
(00:00:00) Chapter 01
(00:31:10) Chapter 02
(00:54:50) Chapter 03
(01:24:07) Chapter 04
(01:57:11) Chapter 05
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The Old Maids Club by Israel Zangwill audiobook.
Genre: comedy
In late-Victorian London, seventeen-year-old Lillie Dulcimer is brilliant, beautiful, and far too self-aware for polite society's comfort. With a millionaire father determined to see her safely married, Lillie answers pressure with paradox: she founds the Old Maids' Club, a proudly exclusive refuge for young women who refuse to treat matrimony as a duty or a bargain. Part manifesto, part social prank, the club's tongue-in-cheek rules and public posturing turn Lillie into a minor celebrity - and a lightning rod for every matchmaker, moralist, and curious onlooker in town. As word spreads, a parade of suitors, friends, rivals, and fellow skeptics circle the club, including Lord Silverdale, whose presence tests whether Lillie's theories about love and independence can survive contact with real feeling. Told with Zangwill's brisk wit and satirical eye, The Old Maids' Club skewers the era's marriage market while letting its heroine chase a harder question: how to stay true to herself in a world that insists a woman's story must end at the altar.

Chapters (Approximate)
(00:00:00) Chapter 01
(00:19:30) Chapter 02
(00:31:58) Chapter 03
(00:59:33) Chapter 04
(01:10:00) Chapter 05
(02:16:22) Chapter 06
(02:35:48) Chapter 07
(03:25:43) Chapter 08
(03:37:41) Chapter 09
(04:02:08) Chapter 10
(04:27:04) Chapter 11
(05:16:38) Chapter 12
(05:32:04) Chapter 13
(06:18:06) Chapter 14
(06:51:51) Chapter 15
(07:27:56) Chapter 16
(07:49:59) Chapter 17
(08:14:38) Chapter 18
(08:47:46) Chapter 19
(09:03:15) Chapter 20
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The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac audiobook.
Genre: drama
In Restoration Paris, where wealth and reputation can be traded as easily as gossip, the worldly dandy Henri de Marsay lives for conquest and control. But a single glimpse of a young woman with striking, golden eyes jolts him out of his practiced indifference. Determined to learn her name and claim her attention, de Marsay follows the faint trail of clues into a shadowed corner of the city, a place of barred windows, whispered appointments, and servants who seem trained to reveal nothing. The woman, Paquita Valdes, is kept behind layers of secrecy, and every step closer to her draws de Marsay deeper into a private world ruled by jealousy and fear. As desire turns into fixation, he must navigate coded messages, clandestine meetings, and the unsettling sense that he is not the only one watching. Balzac builds a feverish portrait of obsession, erotic power, and social theater, exposing how privilege can disguise cruelty and how longing can become a trap, for pursuer and pursued alike.

Chapters (Approximate)
(00:00:00) Chapter 01
(01:00:32) Chapter 02
(01:30:18) Chapter 03
(01:48:08) Chapter 04
(02:10:14) Chapter 05
(02:29:54) Chapter 06
(03:00:17) Chapter 07
(03:21:57) Chapter 08
(03:39:22) Chapter 09
(03:58:39) Chapter 10
(04:14:58) Chapter 11
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Farewell by Honore de Balzac audiobook.
Genre: tragedy
In Farewell, Honore de Balzac delivers a stark, intimate tale of love tested by history and the limits of the human mind. Years after the Napoleonic wars, the aristocratic Philippe de Sucy stumbles upon a mystery in the French countryside: a young woman living in near-silence, her thoughts fractured, her past seemingly erased. She is Stephanie de Vandières, once the center of a passionate attachment, now trapped in a childlike state after a catastrophe tied to the retreat from Russia. Philippe cannot accept that the woman he loved has vanished behind an unresponsive gaze. Driven by devotion and guilt, he throws himself into an all-consuming effort to bring her back, consulting doctors, courting powerful allies, and clinging to the idea that a single key - a word, a memory, a scene - might unlock what trauma has sealed away. Balzac blends psychological realism with the lingering violence of war, asking how much of a person can survive disaster, and what love becomes when it turns into a mission. The result is tense, haunting, and relentless in its emotional stakes.

Chapters (Approximate)
(00:00:00) Chapter 1
(00:17:05) Chapter 2
(00:37:43) Chapter 3
(00:58:23) Chapter 4
(01:18:52) Chapter 5
(01:38:26) Chapter 6
(01:57:58) Chapter 7
(02:11:35) Chapter 8
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Tales of a Wayside Inn by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow audiobook.
Genre: poetry
Set in the warm glow of a New England hearth, Tales of a Wayside Inn gathers a circle of travelers at the old Sudbury inn where stories are as essential as food and fire. As snow settles outside, a diverse company - including the thoughtful Student, a wandering Sicilian, a sober Theologian, a quick-witted Poet, and other passing guests - agrees to pass the evening in friendly contest, each telling a tale to entertain, provoke, and illuminate. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow frames their storytelling like a medieval story-cycle, then opens into a rich procession of narrative poems drawn from legend, history, and rumor: saints and sinners, kings and commoners, acts of courage and folly, moments of justice, mercy, and eerie wonder. With each new voice, the inn becomes a crossroads of cultures and centuries, where the past feels close enough to touch and every tale carries a quiet question about what people owe to one another. Lyrical, conversational, and often suspenseful, this book invites listeners to settle in, listen closely, and discover how a night of stories can change the way a life is understood.

Chapters (Approximate)
(00:00:00) Chapter 1
(00:22:57) Chapter 2
(00:45:44) Chapter 3
(00:59:30) Chapter 4
(01:18:33) Chapter 5
(01:35:53) Chapter 6
(01:50:11) Chapter 7
(02:04:33) Chapter 8
(02:19:04) Chapter 9
(02:33:48) Chapter 10
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