Terry Jones has narrated 4 audiobooks on Listento.it by 3 authors, with an average listener rating of 4★ across 11 ratings. The most-rated is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Summary
A collection of three medieval English poems, translated by Tolkien for the modern-day reader and containing romance, tragedy, love, sex and honour.
©1975 J.R.R. Tolkien Copyright Trust; (p)1997 HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, London, UK
The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales
Summary
Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is one of the most influential pieces of writing in the British literary canon. It helped to establish English, rather than Latin or Norman French, as an acceptable language for literature. It was also one of the earliest pieces of work to have story linking - what had previously been just collected writings which the author deemed interesting. Following the model of such early masterpieces as Boccacio's Decameron, Chaucer collected several styles and types of stories together - political treatises, bawdy pub stories, courtly romances and moral tales - joining them together under the conceit of a group of pilgrims bound for Canterbury, swapping tales, somewhat competitively, in an inn in Southwark, South London. The prologue to the tales is therefore an important piece of literature in its own right. Before The Canterbury Tales and its like, it didn’t really matter in what order you read the works collected in one volume; the first item could just as well be read last. The prologue not only introduces all the characters you are about to meet; it also sets the scene for you, painting a picture of what has become one of the most famous of literary Aprils and linking the forthcoming stories with a series of jousting type attempts by the tellers to top each other and exact revenge for previous insults.
Public Domain (P)2008 Silksoundbooks Limited
The Miller's Tale
Summary
In his own inimitable style, Terry Jones leads you through Chaucer's filthy and very funny tale of adultery, the feared coming of the second flood and burnt bums. The Canterbury Tales broke the literary mould in many ways. It established English as an acceptable language for literature, where previously it had been almost exclusively Latin or Norman French. It was also one of the first books to create a link between all the pieces of work in a literary collection. Before that an author had merely put together a group of pieces that he considered interesting, in no particular order and with no connecting narrative. Chaucer chose a meeting between pilgrims at the Tabard Inn on the road to Canterbury to provide the linking narrative for his Canterbury Tales. A group of pilgrims swap their tales, with a thoroughly human competitiveness and retaliatory jousting. The choice of pilgrims for his characters allowed Chaucer to put together types that wouldn't usually associate let alone talk. This recording of The Miller's Tale is a translation from the Middle English into modern language by the leading Chaucerian scholar, Terry Jones - yes, the Python one - who adds to his truly scholarly rendition of the text a smattering of highly useful and fascinating notes, recorded as he read. He also, of course, adds a particular dimension all his own to a tale of wicked bawdiness and bare asses.
Public Domain (P)2008 Silksoundbooks Limited
The Wind in the Willows
Summary
"...there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats." So says Rat, as he welcomes the lonely Mole to the community of the River. Whether messing about in boats, touring in Toad's motorcar, or simply relaxing at home, Mole, Rat, Otter, Toad, and Badger demonstrate the honorable human characteristics of kindness, patience, and tolerance toward all that have made this classic tale beloved by generations since it was first published in 1908. Narrator Terry Jones of Monty Python fame produced a version of The Wind in the Willows for British television in 1995.
Copyright (P)1996 by Dove Audio, Inc.