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Basil by Wilkie Collins

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Basil

Author
Wilkie Collins
Narrator
Nicholas Boulton
Publisher
Naxos AudioBooks
Publish Date
1 July 2022
Run Time
11 hours 24 minutes
Format
Audiobook
Genre
Classic fiction
$13.95

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What to expect

Appearing in 1852, Basil was Wilkie Collins’s second published novel. The eponymous narrator is emotionally torn between two women: Margaret Sherwin and his sister Clara. His marriage to Margaret, a draper’s sexually precocious daughter, is to remain secret and unconsummated for the first year, as agreed with her father. Anticipating Collins’s later sensation novels, the plot involves betrayal, insanity and death, with a thrilling conclusion set among the cliffs and whirlpools near Land’s End. The book was received with shock upon its publication, most especially due to its treatment of adultery. Here Basil is read by the prolific and popular narrator Nicholas Boulton.

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Details
Author
Wilkie Collins
Narrator
Nicholas Boulton
Duration
11 hours 24 minutes
Release Date
1 July 2022
ISBN
9781781984093
Format
Audiobook
Publisher
Naxos AudioBooks
Genre
Classic fiction

Synopsis

Set in the court of Urbino in 1507, Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier presents an invaluable look at court life and culture during the Renaissance. Over four nights of dialogue, the book explores the key question, ‘What should a courtier be like?’; it presents a deep and timeless discussion that is reminiscent of Plato’s Symposium and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and invites comparisons with Machiavelli’s The Prince. It is absorbing and enlightening, and encompasses a wide range of topics that include dancing, fencing, war, religion, culture, courtly and corporeal love and gender relations, with a surprisingly modern defence of women and equal rights.

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