The Valley of Decision by Edith Wharton ~ Full Audiobook [history]

Classic Audiobook Collection

12/21/22

•

1024m

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The Valley of Decision by Edith Wharton audiobook.

Genre: history

Set in late 18th-century Italy on the eve of the French Revolution, Edith Wharton's debut novel follows Odo Valsecca, a sensitive boy raised among peasants who learns that his blood ties him to a ruling house. When a sudden turn of fortune draws him into aristocratic life and positions him to inherit the dukedom of Pianura, Odo arrives with a reformer's hopes shaped by Enlightenment ideas and by the hardships he has witnessed at the bottom of the social order. Court etiquette, church authority, and entrenched privilege, however, prove as formidable as any enemy, and Odo discovers that power is a maze of compromises, allies, and hidden costs. At the center of his private life is Fulvia Vivaldi, a brilliant and daring liberal whose convictions both inspire and endanger him, forcing Odo to weigh love and loyalty against prudence and duty. As political factions harden and unrest spreads, Odo must decide what kind of ruler he will be, and what he is willing to sacrifice to make change real.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:00:45) Chapter 01

(00:18:28) Chapter 02

(00:36:27) Chapter 03

(00:50:24) Chapter 04

(01:11:14) Chapter 05

(01:28:18) Chapter 06

(01:52:57) Chapter 07

(02:11:38) Chapter 08

(02:39:56) Chapter 09

(02:57:05) Chapter 10

(03:14:56) Chapter 11

(03:27:21) Chapter 12

(03:45:48) Chapter 13

(04:15:33) Chapter 14

(04:35:44) Chapter 15

(04:55:52) Chapter 16

(05:17:55) Chapter 17

(05:24:29) Chapter 18

(05:40:27) Chapter 19

(06:12:04) Chapter 20

(06:38:08) Chapter 21

(07:06:30) Chapter 22

(07:29:32) Chapter 23

(07:52:17) Chapter 24

(08:25:25) Chapter 25

(09:06:53) Chapter 26

(09:50:30) Chapter 27

(10:11:54) Chapter 28

(11:00:39) Chapter 29

(11:23:27) Chapter 30

(11:46:27) Chapter 31

(12:18:58) Chapter 32

(12:40:43) Chapter 33

(13:08:34) Chapter 34

(13:31:53) Chapter 35

(13:55:33) Chapter 36

(14:04:26) Chapter 37

(14:26:30) Chapter 38

(14:47:09) Chapter 39

(15:03:46) Chapter 40

(15:30:07) Chapter 41

(15:53:50) Chapter 42

(16:15:49) Chapter 43

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Previous Episode

The Touchstone by Edith Wharton ~ Full Audiobook [drama]

December 21, 2022

•

166m

The Touchstone by Edith Wharton audiobook.

Genre: drama

In turn-of-the-century New York, Stephen Glennard is a promising but faltering man of letters with one urgent desire: to marry Alexa Trent, the gracious woman he loves. But with his career slipping and money running out, Stephen finds himself trapped between respectability and desperation. A tempting opportunity appears when he realizes he still possesses a cache of intensely personal letters written to him by Margaret Aubyn, a celebrated author who is now dead and newly idolized by the literary world. Publishing such a correspondence could bring a fortune - and it would be easy to hide his own connection to it. Yet the choice forces Stephen to measure what, exactly, he is willing to trade for comfort, status, and a future with Alexa. As the letters begin to circulate, their intimate voice draws readers in and throws Stephen into a tightening web of secrecy, shame, and self-justification. Edith Wharton turns a seemingly simple act into a piercing moral drama about ambition, betrayal, and the cost of building a life on another person's most private truths.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:10:34) Chapter 02

(00:27:57) Chapter 03

(00:35:36) Chapter 04

(00:51:42) Chapter 05

(01:03:05) Chapter 06

(01:18:11) Chapter 07

(01:30:19) Chapter 08

(01:44:24) Chapter 09

(01:51:23) Chapter 10

(02:01:20) Chapter 11

(02:05:46) Chapter 12

(02:17:19) Chapter 13

(02:31:47) Chapter 14

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Next Episode

One Basket by Edna Ferber ~ Full Audiobook [drama]

December 21, 2022

•

314m

One Basket by Edna Ferber audiobook.

Genre: drama

One Basket gathers Edna Ferber's most memorable short fiction into a single, wide-ranging portrait of American life, chosen and introduced by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author herself. Spanning decades and shifting from small-town streets to city apartments, from cramped kitchens to prosperous parlors, these stories follow people caught between what they want and what their communities will allow. Women stand at the center: a notorious beauty trying to live down a past in The Woman Who Tried to Be Good, wives and husbands learning that love can be both tenderness and negotiation, and mothers confronting the quiet power and pressure of family bonds. Ferber writes with a reporter's eye for telling detail and a dramatist's instinct for dialogue, revealing how class, reputation, ambition, and longing shape ordinary choices. Some tales are wryly comic, others sharp-edged and moving, but each turns on the same question: what does it cost to become the person you claim to be? With brief author prefaces that illuminate her craft and themes, One Basket is both an inviting introduction and a rich retrospective of Ferber's storytelling range.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 1

(00:28:25) Chapter 2

(01:20:00) Chapter 3

(02:16:08) Chapter 4

(03:13:21) Chapter 5

(04:09:46) Chapter 6

(04:22:01) Chapter 7

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