Nicholas Boulton has narrated 42 audiobooks on Listento.it by 31 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 181 ratings. The most-rated is The King's Man.
The Legends of Robin Hood
Summary
Hero. Outlaw. Faithful. Rogue. Champion. Vigilante. How do you fight for justice when the laws are unjust? Where are the lines between a righteous cause and hate-filled revenge? The child of a reputable family and a faithful son of the Church, Robert of Locksley had no intention of becoming an outlaw. But the relentless cruelty and tyranny by the elite nobility of England demanded that someone rise up to give answer. And so Robert of Locksley became Robin Hood, a man thrown into a fierce struggle to balance his deep faith with a call to action in a violent age. Featuring over 60 actors, cinematic sound, and original music, The Legends of Robin Hood is an exciting 12-part audio drama from the award-winning Augustine Institute. Bold and inspiring, the Augustine Institute's audio dramas take storytelling to a whole new level of sound that quickens the imagination and inspires the heart.
©2019 Augustine Institute (P)2019 Augustine Institute
Land of Men
Summary
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is known universally for the gentle charm of Le Petit Prince, but it is this book, Land of Men - known originally in English as Wind, Sand and Stars - which is his masterpiece. First published in 1939, it documents Saint-Exupéry's life as a pilot in the pioneering days of long-distance flying and in particular his experiences as a pilot transporting mail across countries, across continents. These courageous pilots took their lives in their hands each time they set out to deliver the mail. It was extremely hazardous, for the aeroplanes were unreliable, precise meteorology was in its infancy, radio communication and maps were relatively primitive and new and long routes were being pioneered over dangerous terrain of all kinds - across the Sahara, over the Andes, even just across the Mediterranean. But in Land of Men, Saint-Exupéry doesn't just relate tales of derring-do in the clouds, the storms, or what it is like to be lost over thousands of featureless miles above sea or sand. He does speak of the dangers, the risks from bandits and dissidents when landing in a tiny desert outpost and the struggles to keep these basic machines in the air when faced with buffeting winds or flying through dense cloud for hours, without one reassuring sight of a landmark. He recounts his crash in the Sahara, his days of walking without water and his remarkable survival. But all this action is underpinned by reflection, by poetic expression, by camaraderie and by an inner quiet born of those hours spent high in the sky - with the wind, the sand and the stars. It is poignant also, because Saint-Exupéry himself disappeared one day five years after the book's publication, flying over the Mediterranean. All this, and a rich humanity, makes this a great, great book. It has been an international favourite since it first appeared and is now presented in Bill Homewood's vibrant new translation of Terre des Hommes, more faithful to and representative of Saint-Exupéry's original. This recording, narrated with intimacy and care by Nicholas Boulton, will be one you will never forget.
©2016 Ukemi Audiobooks (P)2016 Ukemi Audiobooks
Against Nature (Against the Grain)
Summary
Against Nature was one of the most shocking French novels of the 19th century. When it was published in 1884, it thrilled the aesthetes, the poets, and the intellectuals of Europe on both sides of the Channel (notably Oscar Wilde) because for all its lofty tone, it had, as its core, an unbridled decadence, and it was this same character that challenged, even horrified, established bourgeois society. Des Esseintes, a minor aristocrat but a high intellectual - deeply cultured and well-read - can no longer bear contemporary Parisian life in any of its forms! As a youth he had experienced the monastic environment and later academic life, but, remaining unfulfilled, he immersed himself in the multifarious sensual pleasures so readily available in Paris. Still deeply unsatisfied, he decides to move to a house in a village in the countryside. Here he can create his own controlled environment with a minutely designed interior supporting his particular artistic tastes. At last he can live alone with his books, his reflections, and his needs. Nothing will interfere with how he wants to live, what he wants to see, to read, to study, to smell, to eat. However, a life of such total personal indulgence, even on a lofty intellectual and artistically sensitive plane, proves anything but easy - or satisfying. The character of Des Esseintes, intense, testing, infuriating, but astonishing, was said to have been influenced by the famous aesthete of the time, the Comte de Montesquiou (also a model for Baron de Charlus in Proust's In Search of Lost Time), while Against Nature makes an unmistakeable appearance in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Nicholas Boulton here reads one of the best early translations (published anonymously and originally titled Against the Grain), which has been revised to reinstate sections originally cut to protect sensibilities of the time. It is the full novel as Huysmans intended.
Public Domain (P)2017 Ukemi Productions Ltd
A Fallen Lady
Summary
Laura Kinsale presents...
He came looking for the disgraced object of scandal, and found a delightful woman too proud to reveal her heart. A memorable Regency heroine highlights Elizabeth Kingston's special talent to create characters who steal your heart, with Nicholas Boulton to bring them to life.
For reasons of his own, Stephen Hampton, Lord Summerdale, is determined to learn the truth behind the tangled tale of Helen's ruin. There is nothing he abhors so much as scandal - nothing he prizes so well as discretion - and so he is shocked to find that he cannot help but admire her.
But how can she trust a man so steeped in the culture of high society, who conceals so much? And how can he, so devoted to the appearance of propriety, ever love a fallen lady?
©2015 Elizabeth Kingston (P)2017 Hedgehog, Inc.
Four Arthurian Romances
Summary
The Arthurian Romances by Chrétien de Troyes form the wellspring of the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Stories of knightly valour in the Welsh Marches had existed before the 12th century, but it was the magnificent poetry and imagination of Chrétien, the 12th century French poet and trouvère, which brought alive the great characters of Arthur, his wife Guinevere, Lancelot and others. In fact, it was here, in these romances, that the tale of Lancelot of the Lake and his fated love for Guinevere first made its appearance in European literature. And far from being trapped in formal medieval stanzas, their passion has come down to us in words that still resonate: 'From the moment he caught sight of her, he did not turn or take his eyes and face from her.' From these four romances emerge a chivalric Arthurian vision as vivid and human as the more familiar telling by Sir Thomas Malory three centuries later. The three other stories are equally rich and compelling, painting images of knightly ethics, courageous deeds and above all love, honour and service. Chrétien's telling is the outstanding Arthurian literary source, bringing together as it does the British plot, the characters and the adventures with a French courtly sensitivity. Though less known than Lancelot and Guinevere, the story of the trials leading to the love between Eric and Enide is just as memorable; in Cligès, the young hero travels between Greece and Arthur's court in order to win his spurs and his love; and in Yvain, the knight is helped by a faithful lion to achieve his aim. These Four Arthurian Romances are read with full commitment by Nicholas Boulton using the translation by W. W. Comfort.
Public Domain (P)2017 Ukemi Productions Ltd
Dead Souls
Summary
Gogol's great Russian classic is the Pickwick Papers of Russian literature. It takes a sharp but humorous look at life in all its strata but especially the devious complexities in Russia, with its landowners and serfs. We are introduced to Chichikov, a businessman who, in order to trick the tax authorities, buys up dead 'souls', or serfs, whose names still appear on the government census. Despite being a dealer in phantom crimes and paper ghosts, he is the most beguiling of Gogol's characters. Gogol's obsession with attempting to display 'the untold riches of the Russian soul' eventually led him to madness, religious mania, and death. Dismissed by him as merely 'a pale introduction to the great epic poem which is taking shape in my mind', Dead Souls is the culmination of Gogol's genius. Translator: Constance Garnett. 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)2017 Naxos AudioBooks
Life & Works - Johannes Brahms
Summary
Brahms is one of the best loved yet most controversial of all the Romantics. Almost uniquely, his works have never suffered the slightest period of eclipse. Profoundly emotional yet governed by an iron discipline, the music, like the man, is a fascinating, entertaining, often deeply moving blend of opposites. He had a gift for friendship and a capacity for love far beyond the ordinary, yet no man could be ruder or more hurtful. Though humble, he was consumed by a sense of destiny, and his inner life, colored by his adoration and fear of women, found expression in some of the greatest music ever written. Listening to this audio-biography is leaping inside the life and times of a great German Romantic, understanding the man who was haunted by the ghost of Beethoven for years and was 43 before he wrote his first symphony. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2002 Naxos AudioBooks (P)2002 Naxos AudioBooks
The Dream Hunter
Summary
To love him is to face her deepest fear... In search of a legendary mare, Lord Winter enters the crucible of the red sands, forging unbreakable bonds of loyalty and trust with his young companion in the desert. But hidden beneath the ragged costume of a Bedouin boy is a remarkable young woman: Zenia Stanhope, daughter of the extraordinary Queen of the Desert. Zenia wants nothing of the danger that Lord Winter lives for. She wants only to reach England, far from the blood and sand of the desert. But in one night of terror, condemned to death, their lives are irrevocably bound. Zenia escapes to an English world of elegance and comfort, leaving behind the lonely, fearless man who has changed her life and conquered her heart... until he returns to invade her sanctuary. Now she must choose between safety and love, but can she find the courage to be the person she was truly born to be?
©1994, 2013 Hedgehog Inc (P)2013 Hedgehog Inc
The Satyricon
Summary
Libidinous, licentious, salacious and very, very funny, The Satyricon is one of the most remarkable documents from ancient Rome. It tells the ribald story of Encolpius, a man of active and varied appetites (powered notably by his passion for his favourite lover, the handsome Giton), who plunges without inhibition into the life of Roman pleasures: orgies of food, feasting, abundant sex and escapades. The kind of hedonism found occasionally in Roman mosaics is here brought to life. In the feast at the house of Trimalchio we have an extraordinary account of a Roman banquet where dish after dish - each more extravagant than the last - is presented to the diners, who lie on their couches for course after course. And after all that they still find the energy to indulge in intense pleasures of a different kind. Again and again. There are historical questions around the author - Petronius (c27-66 CE), who lived during the time of Emperor Nero - and the text, which was originally much longer than the sections that have survived. This is of interest to academics but need not deter the enjoyment of the delightfully personal tale that has come down to us. Among the characters Encolpius encounters is Eumolpus, a poet philosopher whose extravagant (and loud) journeys into epic poetry attract the Roman equivalent of rotten tomatoes. Very, very funny. It must be said, however, that this is literature, aiming high. It presents an engaging picture of Roman low life: 'women hot after gladiators or dusty muleteers', old men casting glances (and more) at shapely youths, and an elaborate ceremony to Priapus in an attempt to restore lost vigour. But it does so with style and elegance, full of classical references to poetry, history and philosophy though often with dry, humorous asides. Not for the faint-hearted, The Satyricon is a delight from beginning to end, and especially in this hugely entertaining reading by Nicholas Boulton, which opens with a fascinating introduction to the work and its provenance. Translation: Alfred R. Allinson.
Public Domain (P)2017 Ukemi Audiobooks
The Hidden Heart
Summary
When her naturalist father dies on the upper reaches of the Amazon, Lady Tess Collier sets out to fulfill his last wish: return to England and marry. Desperate and broke, privateer Gryphon Meridon takes on an assignment he'd much rather refuse - shepherding a beautiful, eccentric young lady through London's ballrooms.
©1986 Hedgehog, Inc (P)2015 Hedgehog, Inc
Five Days in May (Dramatised)
Summary
Written by Matthew Solon. This play tells the story of the tense negotiation that followed the 2010 general election, which led to the country's first post-war coalition. Based on interviews with those who were at the meetings, political journalists and on published material - and using actors to play all the key characters - this is a compelling account of those five momentous days in May. Under extreme pressure and suffering from lack of sleep, the politicians argued and negotiated. There was nothing inevitable about a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. Revealing key moments of the negotiations, the drama unpicks what went on behind closed doors and shows how an alliance between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats gradually formed, and how it withstood the resignation of Gordon Brown. Based on painstaking research, this is a must-listen 60-minute play. It’s a compelling and entertaining account by award-winning writer Matthew Solon of the most extraordinary British election outcome in 70 years.Cast:David Cameron ..... Samuel WestNick Clegg ..... Nicholas BoultonGordon Brown ..... Gerard KellyPeter Mandelson ..... Henry GoodmanEd Balls ..... John SessionsWilliam Hague ..... Philip JacksonDanny Alexander ..... Emun ElliotDavid Laws ..... Anthony CalfChris Huhne ..... Rupert FrazerGeorge Osborne ..... Ian HughesOther parts are played by Charlotte Longfield, Wilf Gilmour and members of the cast. Producer/Director: John Dryden. A Goldhawk Essential Production for BBC Radio 4.
©2010 Goldhawk Essential Ltd (P)2011 AudioGo Ltd
Children's Crusade: Memoirs of a Teenage Radical
Summary
Evie, a phenomenally bright but socially marginalised fifteen year-old, has had it with Western Civilization. Self-educated in the ideas of the Luddites, Mao and T.E. Lawrence, she wants to launch a mission against technology and the damage she believes it has wrought on the human race. She's taken a look at human history and decided it's time things changed. For good. But can she get her mobile-addicted classmates to join with her? Written by Philip de Gouveia. Starring Leah Brotherhead as Evie, with Luke Treadaway, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Georgia Groome, Christine Kavanagh, Nicholas Boulton, Sally Orrock and Iain Batchelor. Directed by Rosalynd Ward.
©2013 AudioGO Ltd (P)2013 AudioGO Ltd
House of Cads
Summary
Laura Kinsale presents... Vivez la vie pleinement...Live life to the fullest.
That's always been Marie-Anne de Vauteuil's motto. As a Frenchwoman of highly questionable upbringing, she was shunned by genteel society. But then, an invitation to London on a mission of mercy from the very family who cast her aside lands Marie-Anne back in society - and into the arms of a man who can be nothing but trouble.
When life gives you lemons...Make petit fours.
Wealthy American businessman Mason is a) accidentally engaged, b) desperate to get out of it, and c) neither wealthy nor a businessman. Marriage is the last thing on his mind. Money, however, is always of utmost importance. But when he meets the irresistible Marie-Anne, she makes him rethink his life as a fraud, and hoping for something he never believed possible: A proper life with a not-so-proper wife.
©2018 Elizabeth Kingston (P)2018 Hedgehog Inc Productions
Desire Lines
Summary
All he ever wanted was to go home. Leaving his life as a noble hostage behind him, Gryff has fled from one danger to another, never safe, always longing for a forbidden return to his conquered Welsh homeland. Held captive by villainous men, his unlikely savior is the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen - and the most deadly. Her silence is unnerving, her generosity unexpected, and her pointed warning that she will not be an object of lust is perfectly clear. Nan has no doubt the ragged Welshman she has saved from certain death was born to better things, far different from the servant’s life she’s led. Though the last thing she wants is a companion on her journey to find her cherished sister, she is compelled to help the man with haunted eyes and a mysterious past. But she feels the pull of his fascination every instant, and her own unexpected desire soon takes them places neither could have foreseen.
©2019 Elizabeth Kingston (P)2019 Elizabeth Kingston
Shadowheart
Summary
A fatally dangerous man...and the woman who stands in the way of all he's ever desired. Beautiful and ruthless, the elegant assassin Allegreto will stop at nothing to regain his rightful place. And the perfect instrument has just fallen into his hands, in the lovely form of Lady Elena - the long-lost princess of the land he intends to wrest back from his enemies. But she is no mere maiden to be possessed. Even as he forces her to bend to his will, in the heat of desire and fury Elena finds the hidden power in her own soul, a merciless passion and command that will bind her dark lover and bring him to his knees. Her mastery may destroy him…or build an unexpected future from the bitter ashes of his life and dreams.
©2004 Hedgehog Inc (P)2014 Hedgehog Inc
The Life and Works of Mozart
Summary
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the most astonishing child prodigy in the history of music, is felt by many people to be the greatest composer who ever lived. Dominated and shaped by a highly intelligent but frustrated and ambitious father, his story sees the development of a unique genius, from precocious and often endearing childhood to liberated fulfillment, unexpected poverty, and a tragically early death. Generously illustrated by Mozart’s music, from his fifth to his final year, this portrait-in-sound reveals a fascinating yet elusive character, drawing richly on the words of the composer himself and those who knew him. This is the ideal way to understand more about Mozart the man, and his music. Throughout his life, he wrote numerous letters - to his father and his friends and pupils - and his musical colleagues wrote about him. On this entertaining recording, with parts read by various actors, Mozart himself comes to life - with his sublime music ever-present as his career unfolds.
©2002 Naxos AudioBooks (P)2002 Naxos AudioBooks
The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Summary
The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories is a bizarre and colorful collection containing the finest short stories by the iconic Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. From the witty and Kafkaesque "The Nose", where a civil servant wakes up one day to find his nose missing, to the moving and evocative "The Overcoat", about a reclusive man whose only ambition is to replace his old, threadbare coat, Gogol gives us a unique take on the absurd. Gogol’s tales of inconsequential civil servants, mixing the everyday with the surreal, foreshadow the work of his later acolytes, Bulgakov and Kafka. None is more cutting than the main story, "The Diary of a Madman", where a government clerk descends to insanity, claiming that he can communicate with dogs and that he is next in line to the throne of Spain. Translator: Constance Garnett.
©2018 Public Domain (P)2018 Naxos AudioBooks
Uncertain Magic
Summary
As a lovely heiress, Roderica Delamore should be a prize catch--except for her shameful secret. She has the ability to hear the thoughts of those around her. Even her family and close friends can't hide from her strange gift. Knowing that she can never marry, for no man could bear it, Roddy still longs hopelessly for a family of her own. Until she meets the man she's been waiting for--the Earl of Iveragh, a mysterious Irish aristocrat whose thoughts are entirely closed to her. The impoverished Devil Earl is damned in society by dark rumor and innuendo, and, for all she knows, he could be a liar, a rogue, or much, much worse. But Roddy must dance with him at midnight on All Hallows Eve, and entrust her life--and her heart--to a riveting stranger, called by his torment into the faerie mists to discover what she most fears about herself and her own magic.
©1987, 2010 Hedgehog Inc (P)2014 Hedgehog Inc
The Fyodor Dostoevsky BBC Radio Drama Collection
Summary
BBC radio productions of Dostoevsky's masterpieces, plus selected shorter fiction and bonus programmes exploring his life and work. One of the most important and influential Russian writers of the 19th century, Fyodor Dostoevsky is admired worldwide for his great realist novels, exploring questions of morality, philosophy and the nature of existence. This compilation contains the BBC radio productions of his four most famous novels - as well as three lesser-known works and two bonus documentaries - collected together for the first time. Crime and Punishment - When he tests out a horrific theory, young Raskolnikov finds himself pursued by the cunning Investigator Porfiry Petrovich. This thrilling tale of guilt and redemption stars Barnaby Kay and Jim Norton. The Idiot - Arriving back in Russia after years spent abroad treating his epilepsy, Prince Mishkin learns the story of the woman who will dominate his life - the spoilt but captivating Nastasya.... Dostoevsky's most personal novel stars Paul Rhys, Roger Allam and Lia Williams. Devils - Idealism curdles into murderous anarchy in this fresh, contemporary three-part adaptation of Dostoevsky's terrifying masterpiece, starring Gary Lilburn, Jane Whittenshaw, Joseph Arkley and Jonathan Forbes. The Brothers Karamazov - The Karamazov family reunite for a meeting with their father to discuss Dmitry's inheritance. But the unpredictable Fyodor seems unwilling to play the game.... Stars Roy Marsden, Paul Hilton and Nicholas Boulton. The Friend of the Family - Russia, 1859 and the manor of Stephanchikovo is thrown into chaos when a former sergeant sets himself up as an arbiter of morals and taste. David Suchet and Clive Merrison star in this farcical comedy. 'Bobok' - Loitering in the cemetery after a funeral, a drunken writer overhears the conversations of the recently deceased corpses.... This blackly comic short story is performed by Boris Isarov. 'The Dream of a Ridiculous Man' - A study in music and words of Dostoevsky's vision of an idyllic, prelapsarian world. Read by Ronald Pickup. Dostoevsky and Dangerous Ideas - John Gray reflects on the lessons Dostoevsky's novels teach us about the perils of misguided idealism. Dr Rowan Williams on Dostoevsky - The onetime Archbishop of Canterbury joins Susan Hitch to consider conflicting ideas about spiritual regeneration and existentialism, as embodied in Dostoevsky's characters. First published 1859 (The Friend of the Family), 1866 (Crime and Punishment), 1869 (The Idiot), 1872 (Demons), 1873 ('Bobok'), 1877 ('The Dream of a Ridiculous Man'), 1880 (The Brothers Karamazov).
©2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd
No Name
Summary
Magdalen and Norah Vanstone have known only comfort and affluence for their entire lives. Orphaned suddenly following the unexpected deaths of their parents, the illegitimate sisters find themselves flung into the other extreme of living: their father had neglected to amend his will following their parents' recent marriage, leaving them with nothing, and their bitter, estranged uncle, the legal inheritor of the family fortune, mercilessly refuses them support. They have no money, no rights and no name. Norah, the elder of the two, looks for work as a governess and accepts her fate. Fiery and headstrong Magdalen, however, does not. She vows revenge and schemes a series of traps to recover the fortune, no matter the cost.... PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Public Domain (P)2020 Naxos Audiobooks