William Dean Howells has 5 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 5 narrators. The most-rated is The Rise of Silas Lapham.
Questionable Shapes
Summary
Questionable Shapes by William Dean Howells. Narrated by Christianne Lupher. With touches of humor, pathos, and romance, author William Dean Howells questions the nature of the spiritual and leaves the answers to the listener in this unusual collection of ghost stories from the 19th century. A famed proponent of literary realism, Howells focuses not on the supernatural elements of ghostly encounters, but on the psychological responses of his characters. He takes his title from Hamlet's words at seeing the ghost of his father: "Thou comest in such a questionable shape that I will speak to thee." Howells' characters are men of reason, men of science, men and women of truth with agnostic leanings. All encounter a mental or spiritual phenomenon they find too real or too practical to deny, and so they, like Hamlet, must approach these "questionable shapes" from their own worldviews and query what they mean.
Public Domain (P)2019 Voices of Today
The Night Before Christmas: A Morality
Summary
American writer William Dean Howells delights us with his cautiously cynical yet endearing telling of the night before Christmas at the Fountain household. Published in The Daughter of the Storage and Other Things in Prose and Verse in 1916, Howells’ sense of realism and social criticism hides behind the humorous banter between Mr. and Mrs. Fountain, as well as relatives passing by. Raging consumerism, New Year’s resolutions, lovingly marital insults, reflections and memories, and a whole bunch of bathrobes!
Public Domain (P)2018 Museum Audiobooks
Wild Flowers of the Asphalt
Summary
This collection of Poetry and Prose is an explosion of femininity, empowerment, and personal growth. Michelle celebrates her triumph over mental illness and promotes resilience and self-love in her readers.
©2018 William Dean Howells (P)2018 AB Books
The Rise of Silas Lapham
Summary
Howells’ best-known work and a subtle classic of its time, The Rise of Silas Lapham is an elegant tale of Boston society and manners. After garnering a fortune in the paint business, Silas Lapham moves his family from their Vermont farm to the city of Boston in order to improve his social position. The consequences of this endeavor are both humorous and tragic as the greedy Silas brings his company to the brink of bankruptcy. The novel focuses on important themes in the American literary tradition - the efficacy of self-help and determination, the ambiguous benefits of social and economic progress, and the continual contradiction between urban and pastoral values - and provides a paradigm of American culture in the Gilded Age.
Public Domain (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Rise of Silas Lapham
Summary
William Dean Howells was born in Martin's Ferry, Ohio, of Welch, Irish, and German forebears. Along with Mark Twain, he was one of the great novelists of his time. This book, the realisic saga of the rise and redemptive fall of an American tycoon, is considered to be his best novel.
©1997 Jimcin (P)1997 Jimcin