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The Sign of Four is the second story by Conan Doyle about the exploits of Sherlock Holmes. From the moment Mary Morstan tells Holmes about the mysterious disappearance of her father and the yearly gift of a pearl from an unknown benefactor, Holmes and his companion Watson are involved in an exotic tale of stolen treasure, secret oaths and murder, culminating in a breath-taking chase down the Thames. Holmes is on top form, and Watson falls in love. David Timson won the ‘Audiobook of the Year Award’ for his reading of this, the first Sherlock Holmes novel.

The Sherlock Holmes series read in unabridged form, by David Timson for Naxos AudioBooks is widely regarded as one of the finest. Here, Timson brings his remarkable performance skills to one of Doyle’s full-length novels. Holmes and his faithful Dr Watson are summoned to a country house by a coded message. They arrive too late to save a life and then pursue the trail which leads to the unmasking of the murderer.

A mysterious knight all in green arrives at King Arthur’s court and issues a bizarre challenge. Gawain answers the knight – but at what cost? This new translation keeps all the poetic power of the original’s extraordinary alliteration. In doing so it brings the saga vividly to life, and in a manner that demands to be heard. One of the greatest stories of English literature from any period, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a magical medieval combination of the epic and the uncanny.

The glorious but tragic story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is one of the great legends of Western civilisation. Storytellers and poets down the centuries have turned repeatedly to the universal themes of the Quest of the Holy Grail and the love between Sir Launcelot and Queen Guenever. Yet the first printed account, written by the fifteenth-century knight Sir Thomas Malory, remains unmatched. In words which speak directly to us today as they did to his own period, he brings to life a rich tale of heroism and ideals undermined by the poignance of human emotions.

Written in 1819 but set in twelfth-century England, Ivanhoe is a tale of love struggling to survive against a violent backdrop of politics and war. Wilfred of Ivanhoe was thrown out of his father’s home when he fell in love with his father Cedric’s ward, Lady Rowena. Ivanhoe later returns from fighting in the Crusades and is wounded in a jousting tournament. A series of events follow, including the return of King Richard to England, resulting in Ivanhoe’s reconciliation with Cedric and his marriage to Rowena.

Here is a history of Britain by one of its finest statesmen, a man who had himself crucially shaped events during perhaps the greatest crisis of modern times. Churchill’s resonant prose brings to vivid and compelling life the political, constitutional and military landmarks of our history his purpose, to show that a sense of how man may live decently and democratically grew from the heritage of these islands.

This new translation of the great classic of Ancient Greece starts a cycle of drama recordings by Naxos AudioBooks. The anguished tale of Oedipus, who having solved the riddle of the Sphinx and become King of Thebes, gradually realises the crimes he has, unwittingly, committed, remains a drama of unremitting power 2,500 years after it was written. With full drama values, Naxos AudioBooks the atmosphere of the Greek amphitheatre to the soundworld of CD, with the outstanding young actor Michael Sheen – recently seen as Henry V (RSC) and Amadeus (West End) and on film and TV.