Showing results by narrator "Anna Massey" in All Categories

Catherine Morland reads tales of Gothic romance, yet leads a country life in Wiltshire. When she travels to Bath, she meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney. She is invited by his sister and father to stay at Northanger Abbey, where she meets all the trappings of Gothic horror that she has read about. Fortunately, she has her own good sense and irresistible but unsentimental hero, Henry Tilney.

Orphaned in infancy, Catherine de Medici was the sole legitimate heiress to the Medici family fortune. Married at fourteen to the future Henri II of France, she was constantly humiliated by his influential mistress Diane de Poitiers. When her husband died as a result of a duelling accident in Paris, Catherine was made queen regent during the short reign of her eldest son (married to Mary Queen of Scots and like many of her children he died young). When her second son became king she was the power behind the throne.

The acknowledged ‘queen of Regency romance’, best-selling author Georgette Heyer, also penned a dozen delightful mystery novels. Included here are dramatisations of four of her finest stories from both genres, full of her characteristic wit, charm and period detail.

Amy Leatheran had never felt the lure of the mysterious East, but when she travels to an ancient site deep in the Iraqi desert to nurse the wife of a celebrated archaeologist, events prove stranger than she could ever have imagined. Her patient's bizarre visions and nervous terror seem unfounded, but as the oppressive tension in the air thickens, events come to a terrible climax in murder.

London,1953. Josephine Daunt and Susan Dervish both worked for the Ministry of Defence during the Second World War, doing top-secret, highly dangerous espionage work. But in peacetime, they find themselves without a job and feeling useless. Determined to put their talents to good use, they decide to set up a detective agency, with the help of former private eye Bill Mackie. From their Covent Garden office, they handle a steady flow of business.

Captivating radio dramatisations of seven of Charles Dickens' most famous novels. Charles Dickens is one of the most renowned authors of all time, and this first digital volume of the dramatised canon of his work includes seven of his most popular novels.

During a blistering summer, drought has depleted the precious resources of Thornfield Reservoir, uncovering the remains of a small village called Hobb's End: hidden from view for over 40 years. For a curious young boy this resurfaced hamlet has become a magical playground...until he unearths a human skeleton.

Here is a new audio edition of the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 dramatisations of Anthony Trollope's gently satirical tales of provincial life, available together in one download. Nearly 20 hours of ironic, witty, and wonderfully written drama is contained in this audiobook. The cast includes Anna Massey, Alex Jennings, David Haig, Rosemary Leach, Kenneth Cranham, Emma Fielding, and Brenda Blethyn.

For the whole of Rose's respectable married life, she had kept faith with two men. To Ned she was a perfect wife, mother of his son, and elegant hostess of Slepe. To Mylo, Rose was an impetuous and unconventional mistress, answering his erratic and impassionate calls throughout 50 years of tactful duplicity. After Ned's funeral Rose looks back on a life of dual constancy, passion, humour, and the ambiguities of love - and chooses her future.

The first five volumes from the landmark BBC radio series This Sceptred Isle. Christopher Lee's epic history tells the story of Britain from the Romans to the death of Victoria. This collection includes the original first five volumes.

When Anna Durrant is reported missing her friends seem unconcerned at her disappearance. After all, her life has been one of concealment. For years Anna submitted to the protective dependence of her mother, and even after Amy Durrant’s death she simply conformed to the expectations of others. Increasingly, Anna feels herself trapped by these expectations.

An unsettling collection of full-cast dramas from the long-running BBC Radio 4 horror series. Throughout five series of Fear on 4 from 1988-1997, Edward de Souza was The Man in Black, a sinister raconteur who introduced a weekly half hour of terror and suspense. Here, he welcomes us to his house of horrors as he presents 13 terrifying tales that will make your flesh crawl. With eerie sound effects that enhance the atmosphere of dread, these bloodcurdling adaptations run the gamut from the mysterious to the macabre. With superb casts including Imelda Staunton, Bernard Cribbins, Anna Massey, Thora Hird and Sean Barrett.

Inspired by the novels of D.H. Lawrence, particularly The Rainbow and Women in Love, this ambitious quartet from Booker Prize-winning novelist A.S. Byatt charts the lives of the Potter family between 1953 and 1970. Set against the changing social and political landscape of England in the '50s and '60s, it follows the heroine, Frederica, from precocious teenager to TV talk-show host and from her Yorkshire home to the heart of swinging London.

All five volumes from the landmark BBC radio series This Sceptred Isle: The 20th Century. Christopher Lee’s vivid, compelling history tells the story of Britain from the death of Queen Victoria to the dawning of a new millennium. This collection includes the original volumes 1-5.

In these four supernatural dramas, first broadcast on radio in 1984, a house hides more than meets the eye; a B & B landlady helps her guests forget their troubles; a Japanese man inadvertently awakens a vengeful spirit; and a mother and baby become unsettled in remote mill.

Matilda Poliport, recently widowed, has decided to End It All. But her meticulously planned bid for graceful oblivion is foiled, and when she later foils the suicide attempt of another lost soul - Hugh Warner, on the run from the police - life begins again for both. But life also begins to throw up nasty secrets and some awkward questions: just what was Matilda’s husband Tom doing in Paris?

The final five volumes from the landmark BBC radio series This Sceptred Isle. Christopher Lee's epic history tells the story of Britain from the Romans to the death of Victoria. This collection includes the original volumes 6-10. 1702-1760: the First British Empire; the reign of George I; Britain's first Prime Minister, Robert Walpole; and the first rendition of Rule Britannia. 1760-1792: the Age of Revolution; the Industrial Revolution begins....

Poppy Carew, smarting and in shock because her live-in lover has left her for a richer woman, is called to the bedside of her dying father, a wonderful, loveable eccentric who dies laughing. He asks as his last request that he be buried in style by an undertaker who specialises in fun funerals. He also astonishes Poppy by leaving her a large sum of money.

Henry Tillotson, a generous, genial man, rescues Margaret from a disastrous marriage in Egypt and brings her home to the West Country as his new wife. On the threshold she gives him a black eye and retires straight to bed where she remains, apart from the occasional malevolent outburst, for the rest of her life.

Left penniless by the death of his father, nineteen-year-old Nicholas Nickleby seeks help, along with his mother and sister, from Uncle Ralph Nickleby. The hard-hearted money lender takes an instant dislike to his nephew and gets rid of the boy by securing him a teaching position at Dotheboys Hall, where the evil Wackford Squeers presides. Horrified by the barbarity he sees there, Nicholas defies Squeers and is forced to flee.