The Awakening  more, Kate Chopin
The Awakening  more, Kate Chopin
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The Awakening & more
A Full-Cast BBC Radio Dramatisation

Author: Kate Chopin

Narrator: Briony Glassco, William Dufris, Lorelei King, Carolyn Pickles, Clare Corbett, Full Cast

Unabridged: 2 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/28/2025


Synopsis

A full-cast adaptation of America’s most influential 19th century feminist writer - plus a bonus selection of short stories.

Best known for her narratives about the inner lives of sensitive, daring women, Kate Chopin is a vital American author of short stories and novels. She is considered by scholars to have been a forerunner of American 20th century feminist authors, paving the way for the likes of Zelda Fitzgerald. Best known for her 1899 novel The Awakening, Chopin shocked the readers of her day by showing a woman fulfilled by throwing off the ties of marriage and children.

The Awakening, brought to life by a full cast in this adaptation, is Kate Chopin's seminal tale of one woman's pursuit of moral and sexual freedom in turn-of-the-century New Orleans. Unsatisfied with societal expectations, Edna Pontellier falls in love with the dapper Robert Lebrun. Lebrun's flirtations rejuvenate Edna's sense of freedom and independence. However, Edna also has a taste of the danger that comes from living outside of social convention. Trapped between the life she is expected to live and the one she longs to lead, Edna is propelled on a course that frees, consumes and eventually destroys her. Starring Briony Glassco, William Dufris and Lorelei King.

This stunning collection also contains five of Chopin’s short stories, exquisitely read by Carolyn Pickles and Claire Corbett, and available together here for the first time.

‘Ma'ame Pelagie’ is the portrait of a woman on a plantation adjusting to life after the American Civil War.

In ‘A Respectable Woman’, Mrs Baroda, the wife of a sugar planter, finds herself confused and ambivalent when an old friend of her husband’s comes to stay in this cleverly observed story.

In ‘The Story of an Hour’, some supposedly bad news leaves a woman feeling strangely free. But has there been a mistake?

‘The Kiss’ is the story of a woman scheming to marry a wealthy man and maintain a young lover.

Finally, in 'A Pair of Silk Stockings', a woman spends a windfall on herself, instead of her children – but what are the consequences…

This is the perfect immersive listen for any fan of classic storytelling with a twist. Discover an author whose work has echoed down the centuries and inspired writers for generations.

©2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

About Kate Chopin

American author Kate Chopin (1850-1904) wrote two novels and about a hundred short stories in the 1890s. Most of her fiction is set in Louisiana and most of her best-known work focuses on the lives of sensitive, intelligent women.

Her short stories were well received in her own time and were published by some of America's most prestigious magazines-Vogue, the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Young People, Youth's Companion, and the Century. A few stories were syndicated by the American Press Association. Her stories also appeared in her two published anthologies, Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie, both of which received good reviews from critics across the country. About a third of her stories are children's stories-those published in or submitted to children's magazines or those similar in subject or theme to those that were. By the late 1890s, she was well known among American readers of magazine fiction.

Her early novel At Fault had not been much noticed by the public, but The Awakening was widely condemned. Critics called it morbid, vulgar, and disagreeable. Willa Cather, who would become a well-known twentieth-century American author, labeled it trite and sordid. Chopin's third anthology of stories, to have been called A Vocation and a Voice, was for unknown reasons cancelled by the publisher and did not appear as a separate volume until 1991.


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