Read by Mark Rice-Oxley, Christopher Ragland & Ghizela Rowe (Unabridged: 6hrs 46mins)

Featuring stories by Guy de Maupassant, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Honoré de Balzac, Voltaire & others.

Among the glories of French culture are the abundance of its literary talents.  Within its rich historical legacy are authors who take the landscape of life and create very telling stories.  This conflict between history and life summons ideas of strength, beauty, brutality, elegance and all manner of feelings and emotions in these miniature gems.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.

In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?

The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature.

Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something.

In this compilation - 

01 - The Top Ten - The French - An Introduction

02 - The Horla by Guy De Maupassant

03 - A Fight with a Cannon by Victor Hugo

04 - Jeannot and Colin by Voltaire

05 - Martin Guerre - Celebrated Crimes - Part 1 by Alexandre Dumas

06 - Martin Guerre - Celebrated Crimes - Part 2 by Alexandre Dumas

07 - A Passion in the Desert by Honoré de Balzac

08 - The Mass of Shadows by Anatol France

09 - The Siege of Berlin by Alphonse Daudet

10 - The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller by Gustave Flaubert

11 - Three Wars by Emile Zola

12 - Mateo Falcone by Prosper Merimee