Jane Austen's first novel tells the story of Mrs Dashwood and her two daughters, Elinor and Marianne – one full of good sense, the other prone to romantic notions. Originally published in three volumes in 1811, the novel is read here, unabridged, by Juliet Stevenson.

Virginia Woolf’s first novel is a haunting account of a naive young woman’s sea voyage to South America – and her internal journey into adulthood. The lyrical intensity of Woolf’s mature prose is already in evidence, read here by one of Britain’s finest actresses.

One of the most popular Russian novels of the 20th century, The Master and Margarita blends surrealism and political satire with a dazzling cast that includes Satan, Pontius Pilate and a talking cat. This careful abridgement of a new translation is read by the charismatic Julian Rhind-Tutt.

Though he died in obscurity in 1937, HP Lovecraft is now recognized as a master of the uncanny. In addition to the title story, this collection includes his chilling tales ‘The Outsider’, ‘The Doom that Came to Sarnath’ and ‘The Rats in the Walls’.

When Kate Malvern, a beautiful young governess, finds herself unemployed, her aunt Minerva Broome whisks her away to the majestic country home of Staplewood. However, things are not as they seem in this masterly blend of Heyer’s trademark Regency romance and chilling Gothic horror.

When Brigade-Major Harry Smith meets the beautiful Juana Maria, a spark is kindled, and she rides with the troops on his campaigns. Set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, Georgette Heyer’s novel is both a stirring true love story and a dramatic account of Wellington’s Spanish battles.

DH Lawrence’s classic novel follows the lives and loves of three generations of the Brangwen family as their world is transformed by industrialization, culminating in the passionate, headstrong sisters Ursula and Gudrun’s struggle to grasp a higher form of existence, symbolized by the rainbow.

Having made a wager at his gentlemen’s club in London, Phileas Fogg, along with his long-suffering manservant Passepartout, sets off on the race of a lifetime – to circumnavigate the globe in exactly 80 days. In pursuit is Detective Fix, convinced that Fogg is a bank robber. Read by Bill Homewood. Unabridged.

‘A Book of Job transferred to 18th-century bourgeois England’, Goldsmith's tale begins with Charles Primrose, his wife and four children in their tranquil rural parish: an idyll to be shattered by bankruptcy, seduction and prison. Whether a story of suffering and fortitude or a satire of 18th-century life, the novel's appeal has never faltered. Read, unabridged, by Nicholas Farrell.

Although a celebration of Irish life, language and humour, Synge’s comic masterpiece was seen as morally offensive and patronizing towards the Irish peasantry when it was premiered in 1907: it provoked not only controversy but actual rioting. This recording is of a classic production, with a cast led by the Irish actors Siobhan McKenna and Cyril Cusack. 2 CDs; total time 1hr 27mins.

During the Siege of Sarajevo, a cellist plays at a site where many have died, while enemy snipers besieging the city try to kill him. Galloway’s bestselling novel revolves around the cellist, following three citizens as they go about their lives, risking death with every simple journey. Read by Gareth Armstrong.

In Mary Shelley’s powerful Promethean fable, Dr Frankenstein’s experiment and its terrible outcome is told through the letters of an English explorer who met the doomed scientist as he pursued his monster into the Arctic wilderness. Read by Daniel Philpott, Roger May and Jonathan Oliver.

Written in Reading Gaol, De Profundis is Oscar Wilde's letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, whose relationship with Wilde had led to the writer’s trial and imprisonment for ‘gross indecency’. In the first part, Wilde reflects on Douglas’s vanity and his own weakness, but goes on to describe how his ordeal has brought a deeper wisdom. The work is read here by Simon Russell Beale.

Poets of the Caribbean diaspora, such as E A Markham, Grace Nichols and Benjamin Zephaniah, have contributed powerfully to the poetry scene in Britain since the latter part of the 20th century, their work often responding to the harsh realities of the immigrant experience. This 2-CD anthology collects studio recordings from the British Library archive, including previously unissued live performances by Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jean 'Binta' Breeze and Michael Smith.

The Four Just Men, in this second of Wallace's series of ingenious thrillers, pit themselves against The Red Hundred, an organization dedicated to international anarchy and led by the charismatic Woman of Gratz. Read by Bill Homewood.

WH Hudson (1841-1922) was a founder member of the RSPB whose books helped to popularize birdwatching as a pastime. This set of six CDs presents an unabridged reading by Neville Jason of one of Hudson's charming accounts of the hours he spent absorbed in studying birds' behaviour and listening to their songs; he also observes the actions of predators and appeals for his Edwardian contemporaries to pay greater attention to conservation. 6 CDs 7hrs 23mins

Ken Follett's epic The Century Trilogy follows the experiences of families across the globe during the 20th century's most tumultuous events, and this final novel explores the impact of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Civil Rights movement and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Read by John Lee. Abridged.

The Lady Elizabeth is the daughter of Henry VIII, but disinherited and declared a bastard after the execution of her mother. How the young Elizabeth survives the savage world of Tudor politics, inherits the throne and becomes queen is the subject of Alison Weir's novel. It is read here by Emma Fielding. Abridged.

Following Charles Ryder, from student days at Oxford, where he was befriended by the aristocratic Sebastian Flyte, through to the end of the inter-war years, Evelyn Waugh's famous story of forbidden love and loss of innocence, is read here by Jeremy Northam. 4 CDs, running time approx 5 hours.

First published in 1932, Herbert and Eleanor Farjeon's book of poems tells the story of English monarchs, since William the Conqueror, with a poem devoted to each king or queen. This children's classic, along with a selection of the Farjeons' Heroes and Heroines (from Alexander the Great to Emmeline Pankhurst), is read by actors Isla Blair and Julian Glover.

This collection of short fiction includes some of the real classics of horror writing. The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe, The Monkey's Paw by WW Jacobs, Bram Stoker's Dracula's Guest and A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins are among the 14 stories read by Patrick Malahide, Robin Bailey, Richard Pasco and Barbara Leigh-Hunt. Unabridged. Five audio CDs, running time 6 hours.

When a surgeon decides to transplant human body parts into a stray dog he creates a drunken, aggressive and selfish monster. Bulgakov's wild and comic novel is read by Roy McMillan. Unabridged. 3 CDs total duration 3 hrs 45 min.

Maggie Tulliver had two lovers: Philip Watson, son of her father's enemy, and Stephen Guest, already promised to her cousin. But the love she valued most was that of her brother Tom. In telling their tragic story, Eliot vividly evoked the rural setting of Maggie and Tom's childhood at Dorlcote Mill and created one of her most enduring heroines. The unabridged novel is read here by Laura Paton. 16 CDs; total time 20 hrs 39 min.

The Pac Britannica trilogy is Jan Morris's accessible and entertaining narrative history of the British Empire from the accession of Queen Victoria to the death of Winston Churchill. A snapshot of the Empire at the Diamond Jubilee, this second volume looks at what it comprised – from adventurers and politicians to communications and infrastructure – but also examines the jumble of ideologies within it and how they affected its 370 million people. Read by Roy McMillan. Unabridged.

The famous soliloquy from James Joyce's Ulysses in which Leopold Bloom's passionate wife meditates on love and life is read here by the Irish actress Marcella Riordan. A Naxos Audiobook: 2 CDs, duration 2hrs 24 min.

DH Lawrence's reflection on mankind's relation to nature, expressed through the story of Lady Chatterley's sexual involvement with her gamekeeper, is read by Maxine Peake.

Written in 1791 in defence of the Revolution in France, Thomas Paine's Rights of Man is a seminal work on human freedom and equality, arguing that government must respect the welfare rights of all its citizens. It is read here by David Rintoul. 4 CDs; running time 4hrs 37min.

This collection contains 36 poems spanning Mansfield's entire career from 1902 to 1967. It includes extracts from the narrative poems The Everlasting Mercy, Dauber and Reynaud the Fox, as well as sonnets, poems on the Romans and some rarities. 1 CD; running time 67 min.

Although set in India at the time of the British Raj and first published in 1924, EM Forster's novel poses serious questions about preconceptions of race, religion, truth and sex that are equally relevant today. An abridged version of the novel is read here by the actress Meera Syal. 4 CDs, duration 5 hours.

Wilfred Owen's poetry has come to define the experience of the First World War for the generations that followed. This anthology contains 48 poems, read by the classical actor Anton Lesser. 1 CD 79mins

Written as a Greek tragedy, with the Chorus commenting on the action, Milton's 'dramatic poem' tells the story of blind Samson's revenge on his captors, the Philistines. Performed by Iain Glen and cast, directed by John Tydeman.

This famous tale by Washington Irving (1783–1859) is set before and after the American Revolutionary War and tells of a Dutch villager who went wandering in the Catskill Mountains, fell asleep and awoke 20 years later – after the Revolution – to find the world much changed. Rip van Winkle and two more short stories are read here by Adam Sims. Unabridged.

There are few sounds as evocative as a steam locomotive, and although these recordings were made between 1972 and 1974 on preserved lines, they transport us back to the earlier age of steam. There are two audio CDs: Steam Specials includes the sounds of Green Arrow and the Flying Scotsman; the second features locomotives on the Severn Railway, among them Class 5 No. 45110 'RAF Biggin Hill' and Pannier No. 5764. 2 CDs total running time 89 min.

The actor Rory Kinnear reads a selection of war poetry ranging from the early patriotic optimism of John Galsworthy to the suffering and disillusion of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. The CD features works by 24 poets, both soldiers and civilians, including Robert Graves, Ivor Gurney, Rudyard Kipling and Edith Nesbit.1 CD duration 76 min.

Pam Ayres has been delighting the world with her very personal form of poetry since the mid-1970s. This set features some of her best-loved poems and stories, as performed in a one-woman show at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, including 'Yes I'll Marry You My Dear' and 'Oh, I Wish I'd Looked After Me Teeth'.

The witty observations of animal and human behaviour and the wise aphorisms of Aesop's tales have entertained children and adults over millennia. Here Anton Lesser, one of Britain's leading classical actors, reads 60 fables, against the music of Four Seasons and flute concerti by Vivaldi. A Naxos Junior Classic audiobook.

Thomas De Quincey's powerful autobiographical study describes the psychological effects of his addiction to opium: childhood experience turning into dreams, at first euphoric, but becoming horrific as dependence on the drug deepened. Published in 1822, the book brought De Quincey literary fame and was an important influence on later writers. It is read here by Gunnar Cauthery. Unabridged.

'Of all my books,' wrote Charles Dickens, 'I like this the best.' The story of how the orphaned boy makes his way in the world, through trials and tribulations to ultimate happiness, shares much in common with Dickens's own life. A perennial favourite since it first appeared in 1849-50, David Copperfield is read here by Nicholas Boulton. Unabridged. 28 CDs 36hrs 10mins

Although stories such as The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart and The Murders in the Rue Morgue have remained popular to this day, Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) felt that his vocation was poetry. This collection includes both stories and poems, plus a biography of Poe. The works are unabridged and read by Kerry Shale, William Roberts and John Chancer.

Henry Fielding's bawdy and hilarious parody of Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) transforms the eponymous innocent virgin into a shameless slut and predatory social climber intent on marrying Squire Booby. The unabridged novel is read here by a cast led by Clare Corbett as Shamela. 2 CDs 1hr 30mins

Set in London in the late 1950s, this novel by the Nobel laureate Doris Lessing (1919–2013) describes the challenges of life in the aftermath of war. It follows the psychological turmoil of Anna, a novelist and a single mother – as Lessing was – struggling to cope as her personal life and political certainties collapse around her. The Golden Notebook (1962) is read here by Juliet Stevenson. Unabridged.

Against a background of social stagnation, apathy and outmoded institutions, Dickens uses a gallery of vivid characters to show that it is individuals and their acts of kindness, love and generosity that can revitalize society. This Complete Classics unabridged edition of Little Dorrit is read by Anton Lesser. 28 CDs 35hrs 15mins

Probably Victor Hugo's best-known work, Les Misérables (1862) is set in Paris between 1815 and the Paris Rebellion in 1932. It tells the story of Jean Valjean, an ex-convict who redeems his early crime by showing compassion, forgiveness and, ultimately, his courage on the rebels' barricades. This vast novel is presented here in an abridged version, read by Bill Homewood, with music by Berlioz and Honegger.

With a head full of brilliant ideas and wild inventions which never work out quite as planned, Professor Branestawm sets off with his friend Colonel Dedshott on a series of adventures involving wild waste paper, burglars and screaming clocks – among other disasters. First published in 1933, the unabridged classic tales of Branestawm are read here by Martin Jarvis. Age 7+

Published in 1926, this fourth novel in Sapper's Bulldog Drummond series finds the seminal action hero Bulldog Drummond having to prove the innocence of a chemical warfare inventor whose weapon mysteriously goes missing. Roy McMillan reads the unabridged novel and recommends it as 'a pounding good adventure story', never mind Bulldog's imperial attitudes from another era.