Our recording of The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales is a translation from the Middle English into modern language. It is translated by the leading Chaucerian enthusiast Terry Jones, yes the Monty Python one, who adds to his truly scholarly rendition of the text a smattering of vital and fascinating notes, recorded as he read.

A meeting between pilgrims at the Tabard Inn on the road to Canterbury provides the linking narrative for The 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 allowed him to put a tale of courtly love along side a political treatise, and in this case a filthy and very funny tale of adultery, the feared coming of the second flood and burnt bums.

Download "The Prologue" and get "The Miller's Tale" Read by Terry Jones Absolutely FREE!

In this exclusive audiobook, available only from Silksoundbooks, the celebrated English actor Crispin Bonham-Carter brings Oscar Wilde’s classic story of the beautiful, vain, sinful and indulgent Dorian Gray stunningly to life.

The Picture of Dorian Gray must surely be one of the greatest works of classic gothic horror fiction. As the story of Dorian Gray unfolds, we learn how he houses his conscience in a portrait which slowly and hideously decays while he, ever more indulgent and under the influence of a poisonous “French” novel, remains untouched by age…  but at a terrifying price…

Available in MP3 or iPod audiobook format, download The Picture of Dorian Gray for just £7.95. exclusively from Silksoundbooks.

Our recording of The Miller’s Tale is a translation from the Middle English into modern language. It is translated by the leading Chaucerian enthusiast Terry Jones, yes the Monty Python one, who adds to his truly scholarly rendition of the text a smattering of vital and fascinating notes, recorded as he read.

A meeting between pilgrims at the Tabard Inn on the road to Canterbury provides the linking narrative for The 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 allowed him to put a tale of courtly love along side a political treatise, and in this case a filthy and very funny tale of adultery, the feared coming of the second flood and burnt bums.

Download The Miller's Tale audiobook today and get The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales Free!

‘In the High and Far off times…’ begins Rudyard Kipling’s ‘How the Elephant got his Trunk’, read by star actor Art Malik in this unabridged audio book. Then off we are taken, by one of the greatest storytellers, into a world where children’s questions are turned neatly on their heads and questions provided which far from stopping the stream of enquiries only serve to make it gush faster.

These astonishingly funny and remarkably clever tales follow on directly from the tale told to Mowgli in the second ‘Jungle Book’ (1895) of ‘How the Tiger got his Stripes’.

Art Malik reads The Just So Stories brilliantly, with the perfect soft and gentle voice… an absolute must for any child (or adult!)

We have embedded Kipling’s own original illustrations into this audiobook so that they will appear on your screen with each chapter, whether you are listening on a computer or your iPod.

This audio book, read by star actor Sir Derek Jacobi tells the tale of Dr Frankenstein and the horrendous monster he unleashes on the world when he tinkers with the laws of Nature.

Frankenstein was the product of one of the most famous ghost story telling sessions in history; Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and several others were stranded on the shores of Lake Geneva during a particularly sodden summer. They challenged each other to come up with the most ghastly and soul rending story their sizable literary talents could muster and the hands-down winner came from Shelley’s wife – Mary Shelley.

The novel that emerged several years later has been recognised as one of the most chilling and gruesome horror stories ever written and it is certainly one of the most famous. It is however fathoms more than this, it’s a moving account of a battle for independence, it’s a warning against man’s pride in his ability to change the world with his blind pursuit of science.

The Silksoundbooks audio book Alice in Wonderland, read by star actress Julia McKenzie starts with Alice on a rather unadventurous picnic...  but as her attention wanders she is suddenly brought face to face with a passing white rabbit who happens to be wearing a waistcoat and muttering to himself “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!”.

As he disappears down a rabbit hole and Alice, for want of anything better to do, follows him, she finds herself in Wonderland – a fantastical world where the characters Alice meets and the situations in which she finds herself have the whiff of symbol and allegory about them, but are much too funny to be pinned down as such.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland  is read by Julia McKenzie as an unabridged audiobook and is  perfect for children of all ages