Audiobooks online: genre "Satire", page 12

The Imaginary Invalid (French: Le Malade imaginaire) is a three-act comédie-ballet by the French playwright Molière. It was first performed in 1673 and was the last work he wrote. In an ironic twist of fate, Molière collapsed during his fourth performance as Argan on 17 February ...

Please note: this recording contains strong language."1601," wrote Mark Twain, "is a supposititious conversation which takes place in Queen Elizabeth's closet in that year, between the Queen, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Duchess...

This third volume of Mark Twain's journal writings continues on eclectic and varied path established by the first two volumes. Included in this collection are works that appeared by themselves in magazines during Twain's lifetime, as well as essays taken by editors and Twain hims...

In one of his later novels, the master storyteller spins a tale of two children switched at infancy. A slave takes on the identity of master and heir while the rightful heir is condemned to live the life of a slave. Twain uses this vehicle to explore themes of nature vs. nurture,...

In 1661 and 1662 Moliere presented the plays The School for Husbands and then The School for Wives (this one). "The central situations of the two have much in common: the arbitrary and jealous lover to whom circumstances have given almost the authority of a husband: the simple wa...

Dating back to the 6th century BC, Aesop's Fables tell universal truths through the use of simple allegories that are easily understood. Though almost nothing is known of Aesop himself, and some scholars question whether he existed at all, these stories stand as timeless class...

In this witty comedy of errors, the Clandon siblings, Gloria and the twins, Dolly and Philip attempt to uncover the identity of their long lost father. Playwright George Bernard Shaw uses the odd mix of eccentric characters thrown together in a seaside setting to make a number of...

Ivan Matveich, the most ordinary person you might hope to meet, is swallowed alive by a crocodile at a sideshow. Finding life inside the belly of the beast quite comfortable, he makes a home for himself there. His disquisitions on the state of the world from inside the crocodil...

John Dryden published Absalom and Achitophel: A Poem in 1681. It is an elaborate historical allegory using the political situation faced by King David (2 Samuel 14-18) to mirror that faced by Charles II. Each monarch had a son whom a high-ranking minister attempted to use against...

Headlong Hall is the first novel by Thomas Love Peacock, published in 1815 (dated 1816). As in his later novel Crotchet Castle, Peacock assembles a group of eccentrics, each with a single monomaniacal obsession, and derives humor and social satire from their various interactions ...

Satiric comedy from 1915 about a nouveau riche British family and their nanny who get whisked off to Maerchenland ('the land of Fairy Tales') one evening in a car drawn by storks. The matron of the family, a thorough snob, is crowned Queen of the country by mistake. She is quick ...

These short comic parodies of five well-known tragedies by Henrik Ibsen originally appeared in Punch, the British humor magazine. From the prefatory note: "The author is conscious that his imitation is painfully lacking in the mysterious obscurity of the original, that the vein o...