About the Authors
Elliot Engel has taught at the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, and Duke University. He earned his MA and PhD as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at UCLA, where he won the Outstanding Teacher Award. He has written numerous books, and his mini-lecture series on Charles Dickens ran on PBS stations around the country. His articles have appeared in many newspapers and national magazines, including Newsweek. He has lectured throughout the United States and on every continent.
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was born in Dublin. He won scholarships to both Trinity College, Dublin, and Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1875, he began publishing poetry in literary magazines, and in 1878, he won the coveted Newdigate Prize for English poetry. He had a reputation as a flamboyant wit and man-about-town. After his marriage to Constance Lloyd in 1884, he tried to establish himself as a writer, but with little initial success. However, his three volumes of short fiction, The Happy Prince, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, and A House of Pomegranates, together with his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, gradually won him a reputation as a modern writer with an original talent. That reputation was confirmed and enhanced by the phenomenal success of his society comedies: Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest, all performed on London’s West End stage between 1892 and 1895. In 1895, he was convicted of engaging in homosexual acts, which were then illegal, and sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labor. He soon declared bankruptcy, and his property was auctioned off. In 1896, he lost legal custody of his children. When his mother died that same year, his wife Constance visited him at the jail to bring him the news. It was the last time they saw each other. In the years after his release, his health deteriorated. In November 1900, he died in Paris at the age of forty-six.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1848) transformed the American literary landscape with his innovations in the short story genre and his haunting lyrical poetry, and he is credited with inventing American gothic horror and detective fiction. He was first published in 1827 and then began a career as a magazine writer and editor and a sharp literary critic. In 1845 the publication of his most famous poem, “The Raven,” brought him national fame.
Robert Frost (1874–1963)
is America’s best-loved poet. His work epitomizes this country’s affinity for
plain speaking, nature, and the land. Over the course of his literary career he
won four Pulitzer Prizes, among many other honors.
About the Narrators
Stefan Rudnicki first became involved with audiobooks in 1994. Now a Grammy-winning audiobook producer, he has worked on more than five thousand audiobooks as a narrator, writer, producer, or director. He has narrated more than nine hundred audiobooks. A recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards, he was presented the coveted Audie Award for solo narration in 2005, 2007, and 2014, and was named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices in 2012.
Neil Hellegers grew up in New Jersey and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a BA in theater arts and a minor in psychology before getting an MFA in acting from the Trinity Rep Conservatory in Providence, Rhode Island. He moved to New York City in 2003 and, since then, has made a career of theatrical performance, percussion, theater education, and audiobook narration. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.
Gabrielle de Cuir, award-winning narrator, has narrated over three hundred titles and specializes in fantasy, humor, and titles requiring extensive foreign language and accent skills. She was a cowinner of the Audie Award for best narration in 2011 and a three-time finalist for the Audie and has garnered six AudioFile Earphones Awards. Her “velvet touch” as an actor’s director has earned her a special place in the audiobook world as the foremost producer for bestselling authors and celebrities.
Gabrielle de Cuir, award-winning narrator, has narrated over three hundred titles and specializes in fantasy, humor, and titles requiring extensive foreign language and accent skills. She was a cowinner of the Audie Award for best narration in 2011 and a three-time finalist for the Audie and has garnered six AudioFile Earphones Awards. Her “velvet touch” as an actor’s director has earned her a special place in the audiobook world as the foremost producer for bestselling authors and celebrities.
Cassandra Campbell has won multiple Audie Awards, Earphones Awards, and the prestigious Odyssey Award for narration. She was been named a “Best Voice” by AudioFile magazine and in 2018 was inducted in Audible’s inaugural Narrator Hall of Fame.
Christopher Cazenove (1943–2010), one of England’s finest actors, starred on stage and television in the United States and Great Britain. His motion-picture credits include A Knight’s Tale, Eye of the Needle, Children of the Full Moon, and Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill. He played Ben Carrington on television’s Dynasty.
Stephen Fry is a celebrated actor, novelist, journalist, presenter, intellectual, wit, and winner of several award for narration. He has produced four novels and two volumes of autobiography and has written for radio shows and television. His television credits include Jeeves and Wooster and Blackadder, and he hosted the BBC TV series QI.
Joel Grey is a Tony, Golden Globe, and Oscar–winning actor and director. In his seven decades in entertainment, Joel has acted in more than a dozen Broadway productions, in over twenty films, and countless television appearances. Along with his work on the stage and screen, he is a renowned photographer. He lives in New York City.
Stefan Rudnicki first became involved with audiobooks in 1994. Now a Grammy-winning audiobook producer, he has worked on more than three thousand audiobooks as a narrator, writer, producer, or director. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks. A recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards, he was presented the coveted Audie Award for solo narration in 2005, 2007, and 2014, and was named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices in 2012.
Gregory Hines (1946–2003) was an American actor, singer, dancer and choreographer. Hines began dancing professionally at age five and was a tireless advocate for tap dancing in America. He received a Tony award for Best Actor for Jelly’s Last Jam and an Emmy for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program for Little Bill.
Arte Johnson is an award-winning narrator and an American comic actor who won an Emmy Award for his role in the television series Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. His audiobook narations have won two AudioFile Earphones Awards, and he placed as a finalist for the Audie Award for best narration in 2003 and 2007.
Stefan Rudnicki first became involved with audiobooks in 1994. Now a Grammy-winning audiobook producer, he has worked on more than three thousand audiobooks as a narrator, writer, producer, or director. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks. A recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards, he was presented the coveted Audie Award for solo narration in 2005, 2007, and 2014, and was named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices in 2012.
Kevin McCarthy was born in Suffolk and served in the Royal Air Force before studying at Boston College and University College Dublin. In 2005 he was awarded the Fingal County Council Arts Bursary for Fiction Writing. Peeler was selected as an Irish Times Top Ten Thriller of 2010 and as a Read of the Year 2010 by the Philadelphia Inquirer. His short story “Twenty-five and Out” was published in Down These Green Streets: Irish Crime Writing in the 21st Century. Irregulars, which features the Sean O’Keefe character, was published in June 2013 and shortlisted for the Ireland AM Crime Fiction Book of the Year 2013.
Bronson Pinchot, Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2010, has won Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, AudioFile Earphones Awards, Audible’s Book of the Year Award, and Audie Awards for several audiobooks, including Matterhorn, Wise Blood, Occupied City, and The Learners. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, he is an Emmy- and People’s Choice-nominated veteran of movies, television, and Broadway and West End shows. His performance of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was named the highlight of the entire two-year Kennedy Center Shakespeare Festival by the Washington Post. He attended the acting programs at Shakespeare & Company and Circle-in-the-Square, logged in well over 200 episodes of television, starred or costarred in a bouquet of films, plays, musicals, and Shakespeare on Broadway and in London, and developed a passion for Greek revival architecture.
Roger Rees, Welsh stage, film, and television actor and, more recently, narrator of audiobooks, is known on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States he received a Tony Award for the Broadway production of Nicholas Nickleby. American TV viewers are familiar with Roger from Cheers, in which he played Robin Colcord. As for audiobooks, Roger has performed in a wide variety of programs, from the LA Theatre Works’ production of Lady Windmere’s Fan, to mystery anthologies such as Malice Domestic and thrillers like Pop Goes the Weasel. His audiobook narration has won four AudioFile Earphones Awards.
Terry Paxton Bradshaw is a former American football quarterback with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He is currently an analyst and cohost of Fox’s NFL Sunday. He played fourteen seasons with Pittsburgh, won four Super Bowl titles in a six-year period—becoming the first quarterback to win three and then four Super Bowls—and led the Steelers to eight AFC Central championships. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1989, his first year of eligibility.
Simon Vance (a.k.a. Robert Whitfield) is an award-winning actor and narrator. He has earned more than fifty Earphones Awards and won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration thirteen times. He was named Booklist’s very first Voice of Choice in 2008 and has been named an AudioFile Golden Voice as well as an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009. He has narrated more than eight hundred audiobooks over almost thirty years, beginning when he was a radio newsreader for the BBC in London. He is also an actor who has appeared on both stage and television.
David Warner is an Emmy Award–winning English actor known for playing romantic leads and villainous characters across a range of media. He is most famous for his roles in films like The Lost World, Titanic, and Planet of the Apes, among numerous others.
Charlayne Woodard is
a film, stage, and television actress, as well as a playwright. She is best known
for her recurring roles as Janice on The
Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Vonda on Roseanne,
and Sister Peg on Law & Order:
Special Victims Unit. She was one of the original cast members in the Tony
Award–winning Broadway musical Ain’t Misbehavin’, and in 2009, starred in a
one-person performance called The Night
Watcher at Primary Stages in New York City.
Michael York is a successful screen and stage actor. Among his screen credits are Romeo and Juliet, Cabaret, The Three Musketeers, Logan’s Run, and Austin Powers. Stage appearances include Britain’s National Theatre and Broadway. His television work has garnered Emmy nominations and his audio recordings Grammy nominations, as well as five AudioFile Earphones Awards. He has been awarded Britain’s OBE, France’s Arts et Lettres, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (1918–2014) was born in New York City and trained at the Yale School of Drama. An actor on stage, film, and television, he was also a narrator, voice-over artist, director, and award-winning producer. He is best remembered for his role as investigators on the TV shows 77 Sunset Strip and The FBI.
Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (1918–2014) was born in New York City and trained at the Yale School of Drama. An actor on stage, film, and television, he was also a narrator, voice-over artist, director, and award-winning producer. He is best remembered for his role as investigators on the TV shows 77 Sunset Strip and The FBI.