Showing results by narrator "Steve Gough" in All Categories

Thomas Mann's vivid, dramatic, and thought-provoking The Magic Mountain is firmly established as one of the classic epic novels of the twentieth century. Part surreal comedy, part grim tragedy, Mann's story depicts a decaying European society on the eve of the First World War.

In this novella, an elderly man, who has endured a lengthy period of imprisonment for murder, relates how he has become reconciled with his incarceration. Prison has not made him bitter or robbed him of his intellectual acuity, but it may have put at risk his ability to function effectively as a free man after his release.

Captain Scott's ill-fated journey to the Antarctic Pole in 1911 is part triumph, part tragedy - an epic tale of heroic endeavor which has inspired books and films over the generations. Despite the simple outline of the story, Scott and his fellow explorers emerge as richly varied characters, brought to life by the diarist's skill as a story-teller. Scott's journal reaches its moving and dramatic crescendo when the explorers reach the Pole, only to discover that the Norwegian, Amundsen, has beaten them to it by many weeks.

E.M. Forster's classic 1910 novel follows the lives and loves of the Schlegel sisters, Margaret and Helen, as they attempt to make connections with members of two very different families: the conservative, wealthy Wilcoxes, and the working-class Basts.

The Life and Death of King John was probably written in the 1590s but not published until the First Folio in 1623. Of Shakespeare's 11 history plays, King John is the one which deals with the story of a monarch most removed from Shakespeare's time. The historical remoteness of this ruler, and also the fact that he had no genealogical links with the Tudor dynasty, enabled Shakespeare to present him in a warts and allà fashion.

In the last of the six novels in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series Trollope relates the story of the impecunious curate Josiah Crawley who is falsely accused of stealing a cheque. The community is divided between the supporters and the accusors of the curate, the latter group including one of Trollope's most memorable characters, the formidable Mrs Proudie.