Audible, Inc., the world’s largest seller and producer of downloadable audiobooks and other spoken-word content, today announced the release of Classic Love Poems, a collection of 15 of the canon’s most enduring romantic verse, brilliantly performed by The Hobbit actor Richard Armitage. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Classic Love Poems is available as a free download at www.audible.com/lovepoems.

The poems featured in this Audible Studios recording are:

  • How do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
  • Meeting at Night, by Robert Browning
  • She Walks In Beauty, by Lord Byron
  • I Carry Your Heart, by e. e. cummings
  • To Be One with Each Other, by George Eliot
  • Give All to Love, by Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Bright Star, by John Keats
  • The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, by Christopher Marlowe
  • To His Coy Mistress, by Andrew Marvell
  • The Dream, by Edna St. Vincent Millay
  • Annabel Lee, by Edgar Allan Poe
  • Sonnet 116, by William Shakespeare
  • Love’s Philosophy, by Percy Bysshe Shelley
  • Maud, by Lord Alfred Tennyson
  • 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8

“Narrating these classic love poems for Audible has been particularly gratifying for me as an actor,” said Armitage. “These are some of the most beautiful and most romantic verses ever written in the English language. I hope that those who are already admirers of these works enjoy my recitation, and that those discovering them for the first time through this production fall in love with the melodious and heartfelt poetry that makes Valentine’s Day and every day just a little bit more romantic.”

“We are delighted to offer listeners this very special recording as an early Valentine’s Day gift,” said Audible EVP and Publisher Beth Anderson. “The beauty and precision of the language in these poems has stood the test of time, but they are raised to a new art form through Richard Armitage’s nuanced interpretation. This is true theater, and an exhilarating way to rediscover these beautiful poems.”

In addition to Armitage, among the acclaimed performers who have narrated works of literature for Audible are Dan Stevens, Jake Gyllenhaal, Kate Winslet and Tim Robbins. In 2013, Audible Studios won its first Grammy Award, for its production of Janis Ian’s memoir Society’s Child, and also won the Audie Award for Audiobook of the Year, for Colin Firth’s performance of Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair.

Audible invented and commercialized the first digital audio player in 1997, and has since been at the forefront of the explosively growing audiobook download segment. In 2014, listeners around the world downloaded 1.2 billion hours of audio from Audible.com outlets; Audible members downloaded an average of more than 17 books over the course of the year. More than half of current Audible members are first-time audiobook buyers.

ABOUT AUDIBLE, INC.

Audible, Inc., an Amazon.com, Inc. subsidiary (NASDAQ:AMZN), is the leading provider of premium digital spoken audio information and entertainment on the Internet, offering customers a new way to enhance and enrich their lives every day. Audible’s mission is to establish literate listening as a core tool for anyone seeking to be more productive, better informed, or more thoughtfully entertained. Audible content includes more than 180,000 audio programs from leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers, and business information providers. Audible is also the preeminent provider of spoken-word audio products for Apple’s iTunes® Store.