Juliet Stevenson has narrated 69 audiobooks on Listento.it by 55 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 1,122 ratings. The most-rated is The Signature of All Things.
The Signature of All Things
Summary
A glorious, sweeping novel of desire, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge, from the number-one New York Times best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure, and discovery. Spanning much of the 18th and 19th centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker - a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry's brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father's money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself. As Alma's research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of orchids and who draws her in the exact opposite direction - into the realm of the spiritual, the divine, and the magical. Alma is a clear-minded scientist; Ambrose a utopian artist - but what unites this unlikely couple is a desperate need to understand the workings of this world and the mechanisms behind all life. Exquisitely researched and told at a galloping pace, The Signature of All Things soars across the globe - from London to Peru to Philadelphia to Tahiti to Amsterdam, and beyond. Along the way, the story is peopled with unforgettable characters: missionaries, abolitionists, adventurers, astronomers, sea captains, geniuses, and the quite mad. But most memorable of all, it is the story of Alma Whittaker, who - born in the Age of Enlightenment, but living well into the Industrial Revolution - bears witness to that extraordinary moment in human history when all the old assumptions about science, religion, commerce, and class were exploding into dangerous new ideas. Written in the bold, questing spirit of that singular time, Gilbert's wise, deep, and spellbinding tale is certain to capture the hearts and minds of listeners.
©2013 Elizabeth Gilbert (P)2013 Penguin Audio
Middlemarch
Summary
Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment. Dorothea Brooke is an outstanding heroine; Middlemarch is filled with characters that are vivid and true, comic and moving. It is one of the greatest novels in the English language. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
Public Domain (P)2011 Naxos AudioBooks
Persuasion
Summary
Anne Elliot has grieved for seven years over the loss of her first love, Captain Frederick Wentworth. But events conspire to unravel the knots of deceit and misunderstanding in this beguiling and gently comic story of love and fidelity.
©2007 Naxos AudioBooks Ltd. (P)2007 Naxos AudioBooks Ltd.
North and South
Summary
Exclusively from Audible Written at the request of Charles Dickens, North and South is a book about rebellion; it poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Gaskell expertly blends individual feeling with social concern, and her heroine, Margaret Hale, is one of the most original creations of Victorian literature. When Margaret Hale's father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience she is forced to leave her comfortable home in the tranquil countryside of Hampshire and move with her family to the fictional industrial town of Milton in the north of England. Though at first disgusted by her new surroundings, she witnesses the brutality wrought by the Industrial Revolution and becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of the local mill workers. Sympathetic to the poor she makes friends among them and develops a fervent sense of social justice. She clashes with the mill-owner and self-made man, John Thornton, who is contemptuous of his workers. However, their fierce opposition masks a deeper attraction. Gaskell based her depiction of Milton on Manchester, where she lived as the wife of a Unitarian minister. She was an accomplished writer, much of her work published in Charles Dickens' magazine Household Words including North and South which was originally published as a serial. She was also friends with Charlotte Brontë and after her death, her father, Patrick Brontë, chose Gaskell to write The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Narrator Biography Whether she's up on stage, behind the microphone or in front of the camera, Juliet Stevenson never fails to charm her audience...whoever they may be. Acting roles in Truly, Madly Deeply, Emma, Bend It like Beckham and Mona Lisa Smile have cemented her status as one of the great British actresses of our time. Meanwhile, her popular performances of hits such as Apple Tree Yard, the book that was turned into a TV series that people just couldn't stop talking about, have earned her an overwhelming amount of well-deserved praise for her spoken word talents.
Public Domain (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Julian Fellowes's Belgravia
Summary
Julian Fellowes's Belgravia is the story of a secret. A secret that unravels behind the porticoed doors of London's grandest postcode. Set in the 1840s, when the upper echelons of society began to rub shoulders with the emerging industrial nouveau riche, Belgravia is peopled by a rich cast of characters. But the story begins on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. At the Duchess of Richmond's new legendary ball, one family's life will change forever.
©2016 Julian Fellowes (P)2016 Hachette Audio
The Namesake
Summary
The Namesake follows the Ganguli family through its journey from Calcutta to Cambridge to the Boston suburbs. Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli arrive in America at the end of the 1960s, shortly after their arranged marriage in Calcutta, in order for Ashoke to finish his engineering degree at MIT. Ashoke is forward-thinking, ready to enter into American culture if not fully at least with an open mind. His young bride is far less malleable. Isolated, desperately missing her large family back in India, she will never be at peace with this new world. Soon after they arrive in Cambridge, their first child is born, a boy. According to Indian custom, the child will be given two names: an official name, to be bestowed by the great-grandmother, and a pet name to be used only by family. But the letter from India with the child's official name never arrives, and so the baby's parents decide on a pet name to use for the time being. Ashoke chooses a name that has particular significance for him: on a train trip back in India several years earlier, he had been reading a short story collection by one of his most beloved Russian writers, Nikolai Gogol, when the train derailed in the middle of the night, killing almost all the sleeping passengers onboard. Ashoke had stayed awake to read his Gogol, and he believes the book saved his life. His child will be known, then, as Gogol. Lahiri brings her enormous powers of description to her first novel, infusing scene after scene with profound emotional depth. Condensed and controlled, The Namesake covers three decades and crosses continents, all the while zooming in at very precise moments on telling detail, sensory richness, and fine nuances of character.
©2003 Jhumpa Lahiri (P)2003 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a Division of Random House, Inc.
A Woman of No Importance
Summary
A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER Chosen as a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by NPR, the New York Public Library, Amazon, the Seattle Times, the Washington Independent Review of Books, PopSugar, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, BookBrowse, the Spectator, and the Times of London Shortlisted for the Plutarch Award for Best Biography “Excellent.... This book is as riveting as any thriller, and as hard to put down.” (The New York Times Book Review) "A compelling biography of a masterful spy, and a reminder of what can be done with a few brave people - and a little resistance." (NPR) "A meticiulous history that reads like a thriller." (Ben Macintyre) A never-before-told story of Virginia Hall, the American spy who changed the course of World War II, from the author of Clementine In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her." The target in their sights was Virginia Hall, a Baltimore socialite who talked her way into Special Operations Executive, the spy organization dubbed Winston Churchill's "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare." She became the first Allied woman deployed behind enemy lines and - despite her prosthetic leg - helped to light the flame of the French Resistance, revolutionizing secret warfare as we know it. Virginia established vast spy networks throughout France, called weapons and explosives down from the skies, and became a linchpin for the Resistance. Even as her face covered wanted posters and a bounty was placed on her head, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. She finally escaped through a death-defying hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown. But she plunged back in, adamant that she had more lives to save, and led a victorious guerilla campaign, liberating swathes of France from the Nazis after D-Day. Based on new and extensive research, Sonia Purnell has for the first time uncovered the full secret life of Virginia Hall - an astounding and inspiring story of heroism, spycraft, resistance, and personal triumph over shocking adversity. A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman's fierce persistence helped win the war.
©2019 Sonia Purnell (P)2019 Penguin Audio
![Cover art for Emma [Naxos Edition]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/519lrG-hG-L._SL500_.jpg)
Emma [Naxos Edition]
Summary
One of Jane Austen's most popular novels. Arrogant, self-willed, and egotistical, Emma is her most unusual heroine.
Public Domain (P)2006 Naxos Audiobooks
Northanger Abbey
Summary
When Catherine Morland, a country clergyman's daughter, is invited to spend a season in Bath with the fashionable high society, little does she imagine the delights and perils that await her. Captivated and disconcerted by what she finds, and introduced to the joys of "Gothic novels" by her new friend, Isabella, Catherine longs for mystery and romance. When she is invited to stay with the beguiling Henry Tilney and his family at Northanger Abbey, she expects mystery and intrigue at every turn. However, the truth turns out to be even stranger than fiction.
©2006 Naxos AudioBooks (P)2006 Naxos AudioBooks
Miss Benson's Beetle
Summary
It is 1950. In a devastating moment of clarity, Margery Benson abandons her dead-end job and advertises for an assistant to accompany her on an expedition. She is going to travel to the other side of the world to search for a beetle that may or may not exist. Enid Pretty, in her unlikely pink travel suit, is not the companion Margery had in mind. And yet together they will be drawn into an adventure that will exceed every expectation. They will risk everything, break all the rules and, at the top of a red mountain, discover their best selves. This is a story that is less about what can be found than the belief it might be found; it is an intoxicating adventure story, but it is also about what it means to be a woman and a tender exploration of a friendship that defies all boundaries.
©2020 Rachel Joyce (P)2020 Penguin Audio
Mrs. Dalloway
Summary
It is a June day in London in 1923, and the lovely Clarissa Dalloway is having a party. Whom will she see? Her friend Peter, back from India, who has never really stopped loving her? What about Sally, with whom Clarissa had her life’s happiest moment? Meanwhile, the shell-shocked Septimus Smith is struggling with his life on the same London day. Luminously beautiful, Mrs. Dalloway uses the internal monologues of the characters to tell a story of inter-war England. With this, Virginia Woolf changed the novel forever. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.
Public Domain (P)2010 Naxos AudioBooks
A Room of One's Own
Summary
A Room of One's Own, based on a lecture given at Girton College Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics. Woolf's blazing polemic on female creativity, the role of the writer, and the silent fate of Shakespeare's imaginary sister remains a powerful reminder of a woman's need for financial independence and intellectual freedom.
©2011 CSA Word (P)2011 CSA Word
Jane Eyre
Summary
The work tells the story of Jane's early life, her experience at Lowood School and as a governess. Her refusal to accept Rochester's love on any but her own strictly moral terms is a passionate cry for independence.
©2006 BBC Audiobooks (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock
Summary
Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction “Wonderful...completely transporting.” (Madeline Miller, New York Times best-selling author of Circe and The Song of Achilles) "Historical fiction at its finest, combining myth and legend with the brutal realities of the past.... Comparisons will be drawn to the works of contemporary authors Sarah Waters and Michael Faber...but The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock has more in common with the novels of Dickens and Austen." (Irish Times) In 1780s London, a prosperous merchant finds his quiet life upended when he unexpectedly receives a most unusual creature - and meets a most extraordinary woman - in this much-lauded, atmospheric debut that examines our capacity for wonder, obsession, and desire with all the magnetism, originality, and literary magic of The Essex Serpent. One September evening in 1785, Jonah Hancock hears an urgent knocking on his front door near the docks of London. The captain of one of Jonah’s trading vessels is waiting eagerly on the front step, bearing shocking news. On a voyage to the Far East, he sold Jonah’s ship for something rare and far more precious: a mermaid. Jonah is stunned - the object the captain presents him is brown and wizened, as small as an infant, with vicious teeth and claws, and a torso that ends in the tail of a fish. It is also dead. As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlors and brothels, all of London is curious to see this marvel in Jonah Hancock’s possession. Thrust from his ordinary existence, somber Jonah finds himself moving from the city’s seedy underbelly to the finest drawing rooms of high society. At an opulent party, he makes the acquaintance of the coquettish Angelica Neal, the most desirable woman he has ever laid eyes on - and a shrewd courtesan of great accomplishment. This meeting sparks a perilous liaison that steers both their lives onto a dangerous new course as they come to realize that priceless things often come at the greatest cost. Imogen Hermes Gowar, Britain’s most-heralded new literary talent, makes her debut with this spellbinding novel of a merchant, a mermaid, and a madam - an unforgettable confection that explores obsession, wonder, and the deepest desires of the heart with bawdy wit, intrigue, and a touch of magic.
©2017 Imogen Hermes Gowar (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers
Mary Barton
Summary
Exclusively from Audible Following the death of his wife and the government's refusal to pass his local trade union's chartist petition, John Barton sinks into a depression so deep that not even his doting daughter can lift him out of it. Seeing the poverty that her family has been reduced to and the desperation in her father's eyes, Mary Barton realises she must reject the proposal of her working-class lover, Jem. Instead, she sets her sights at a master's son, the wealthy heir of a Manchester mill, Henry Carson, in the hope that his situation will improve her own. In a shocking turn of events, Mary discovers Mr Carson has been shot and her former lover, Jem, accused of his murder. As life-altering secrets emerge and the lives of those around her are put on the line, Mary must decide who to trust and who to denounce. Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel, Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life, is an emotive condition of English work in which she artfully intertwines the socio-political struggles of the 'hungry forties' with elements of a classic love story. Mary Barton is a pioneering work of fiction which has ensured that Gaskell's name will forever be included in a list of England's greatest authors. Its success was such that it even won the attention of Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë, forging a great working relationship between the writers, and later leading Gaskell to write Brontë's biography. Narrator Biography Multi-award winning actress, Juliet Stevenson has graced the stage and screen with a myriad of powerhouse performances for over 40 years. Aged nine, she developed a passion for the spoken word after performing a reading of a WH Auden poem in front of her entire school. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and later became a member of its artistic council. Her theatre experience is vast and includes parts in Measure for Measure, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Burn This and Death and the Maiden. She is also known for her film career in works such as Bend It Like Beckham, Emma, Truly Madly Deeply and Mona Lisa Smile. Stevenson has been BAFTA-nominated and been the winner of a Laurence Olivier Award. In 1999, she was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours List, for her services to Drama. Juliet's other audiobook narrations include Sense and Sensibility, North and South, The Portrait of a Lady and Madame Bovary. These and many more can be found at Audible.
Public Domain (P)2010 Audible, Inc.
Daniel Deronda
Summary
Meeting by chance at a gambling hall in Europe, the separate lives of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth are immediately intertwined. Daniel, an Englishman of uncertain parentage, becomes Gwendolyn's redeemer as she finds herself drawn to his spiritual and altruistic nature after a loveless marriage. But Daniel's path was already set when he rescued a young Jewess from suicide. Daniel Deronda, George Eliot's final novel, is a remarkable work, encompassing themes of religion, imperialism and gender within its broad and fascinating scope. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
Public Domain (P)2015 Naxos AudioBooks
The Little White Horse
Summary
It is 1842 and Maria Merryweather, a 13-year-old orphan is on her journey to the mysterious Moonacre Manor. There she finds herself in a crumbling house of secrets and mystery in a world caught up in time. Maria discovers that she is the last Moon Princess and she has only until the next full moon to undo the misdeeds of her ancestors and save the Moonacre estate from disappearing forever. Although she is aided by a stable of wonderful characters and magical beasts, it is only by self-sacrifice and perseverance that she will be able to succeed. And of course, with a good pinch of magic, Maria is able to save Moonacre, right the wrongs, reunite lost loves and finally bring peace to the valley. Read by Juliet Stevenson who plays Miss Heliotrope in the 2008 movie based on the book The Secret of Moonacre.
©1946 Gerald Kealey (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Apple Tree Yard
Summary
Yvonne Carmichael has a high-flying career, a beautiful home and a good marriage. But when she meets a stranger she is drawn into a passionate affair. Keeping the two halves of her life separate seems easy at first. But she can’t control what happens next.
©2014 Louise Doughty (P)2014 Faber Audio
Those Who Are Loved
Summary
The gripping new novel by Sunday Times number one best seller Victoria Hislop is set against the backdrop of the German occupation of Greece, the subsequent civil war and a military dictatorship, all of which left deep scars. Themis is part of a family bitterly divided by politics and, as a young woman, her fury with those who have collaborated with the Nazis drives her to fight for the Communists. She is eventually imprisoned on the notorious islands of exile, Makronisos and Trikeri, and has to make a life or death decision. She is proud of having fought, but for the rest of her life is haunted by some of her actions. Forty years after the end of the civil war, she finally achieves catharsis. Victoria Hislop sheds light on the complexity of Greece's traumatic past and weaves it into the dynamic tale of a woman who is both hero and villain, and her lifelong fight for justice.
©2018 Victoria Hislop (P)2019 Headline Publishing Group Ltd
The Magician's Elephant
Summary
When a fortuneteller’s tent appears in the market square of the city of Baltese, orphan Peter Augustus Duchene knows the questions that he needs to ask: Does his sister still live? And if so, how can he find her? The fortuneteller’s mysterious answer (An elephant! An elephant will lead him there!) sets off a chain of events so remarkable, so impossible, that Peter can hardly dare to believe it. But it is - all of it - true.
©2010 Kate DiCamillo (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.