pplpod

pplpod

pplpod is a podcast about people, places and lots of other stuff. Each episode takes a deep dive into the lives, choices, and legacies of fascinating figures from history, culture, music, and beyond. From icons who shaped entire generations to hidden stories that deserve the spotlight, pplpod brings you closer to the people behind the headlines and the legends. Thoughtful, engaging, and story-driven, pplpod explores what makes these lives extraordinary—and what we can learn from them today.

  1. 20 hr ago

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 15: Enter Mr. Wickham

    Mr. Collins came to Longbourn to choose a wife, and he is nothing if not efficient about it. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 15 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which the heir to Longbourn fixes on his object and a far more charming stranger walks into Meryton. A walk to town brings the younger girls exactly what they went for: officers. A new face is among them, a gentleman just accepting a commission, blessed with all the best part of beauty and a very pleasing address. Then Darcy and Bingley ride up the street, and something silent passes between Darcy and the newcomer that Elizabeth cannot begin to explain. Warned by Mrs. Bennet that Jane is likely to be very soon engaged, Mr. Collins switches his matrimonial plans from Jane to Elizabeth in about the time it takes his hostess to stir the fire.Mr. Denny presents his friend George Wickham, newly of the militia, and the whole party silently agrees he wants only regimentals to be completely charming.Wickham and Darcy catch sight of each other and both change colour, one white, the other red; a barely touched hat is the whole of their greeting, and Elizabeth longs to know what it means.Aunt Philips promises a supper party with officers, a comfortable noisy game of lottery tickets, and a little bit of hot supper, and Mr. Collins is swept into the invitation, apologizing all the way.

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 15: Enter Mr. Wickham

  2. 20 hr ago

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 14: Lady Catherine's Devoted Admirer

    Asked for a subject, Mr. Collins only ever needs one. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 14 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, an after-dinner evening in which the rector of Hunsford unpacks the full glory of his patroness for a host who cannot get enough of him. Mr. Bennet plays his cousin like an instrument, inviting ever more detail about Lady Catherine de Bourgh: her affability, her condescension, her advice that he marry as soon as he can, and the delicate little compliments Mr. Collins composes in advance while trying to give them as unstudied an air as possible. Mr. Bennet concludes the man is as absurd as he had hoped, and shares his enjoyment only by an occasional glance at Elizabeth. Lady Catherine, Collins reports, has never treated him with the contempt his humility invites; she has even asked him twice to dine at Rosings and counselled him to choose a wife with discretion.Miss de Bourgh, sickly and small, is to Mr. Collins most charming, and he has assured her mother that her health, sadly, deprives the British court of its brightest ornament.Invited to read aloud to the ladies, Collins recoils from a novel and selects Fordyce's Sermons; three pages in, Lydia interrupts with militia gossip, and the reading is over for good.Wounded, he abandons books for backgammon with Mr. Bennet, observing that he has often noticed how little young ladies are interested in books of a serious stamp.

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 14: Lady Catherine's Devoted Admirer

  3. 20 hr ago

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 13: An Olive Branch from Mr. Collins

    "I hope, my dear, that you have ordered a good dinner to-day, because I have reason to expect an addition to our family party." This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 13 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which the cousin who will one day turn the Bennets out of Longbourn invites himself to stay for a week. Mr. Collins's letter precedes him: a masterpiece of pompous apology in which he regrets the entail, boasts of his patroness Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and offers to make the girls every possible amends. Mr. Bennet has high hopes of him at once, for a mixture of servility and self-importance so promising cannot disappoint. It does not. The letter announces its author completely: ordained, comfortably beneficed, distinguished by the patronage of the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and extending an olive branch to heal the breach between the families.Elizabeth puzzles over the blend of grovel and pomp and doubts he can be a sensible man; her father cheerfully expects the reverse and is impatient to enjoy him.Mr. Collins arrives punctually at four o'clock: heavy-looking, grave, and formal at twenty-five, and he promptly offends his hostess by asking which of his fair cousins cooked the excellent dinner.Mrs. Bennet, who began the day railing against the entail as usual, softens with remarkable speed once the letter hints that its author may come courting one of her girls.

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 13: An Olive Branch from Mr. Collins

  4. 20 hr ago

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 12: Time to Leave Netherfield

    Five days of Netherfield hospitality is enough for everyone, for entirely opposite reasons. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 12 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which the Bennet sisters try to go home and their mother does everything in her power to stop them. Jane writes to ask for the carriage; Mrs. Bennet, who had counted on a full week at least, replies that the horses cannot possibly be spared. Unwilling to trespass any longer, Elizabeth pushes to borrow Bingley's carriage instead, and the sisters are gone by Sunday morning, to the relief of nearly the whole house. Mrs. Bennet's stalling tactics meet their match in Elizabeth's determination not to linger where half the party wants them gone.Caroline Bingley's civility to Elizabeth increases very rapidly the moment the departure is settled, along with her affection for Jane.Darcy, alarmed at his own interest, decides Elizabeth must be given no sign that could elevate her hopes, and holds himself to it: scarcely ten words to her all Saturday, and steady attention to his book when they are left alone.Home at Longbourn, the sisters find their father genuinely glad to have them back, their mother certain they have ruined everything by leaving, and Mary deep in her extracts.

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 12: Time to Leave Netherfield

  5. 20 hr ago

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 11: My Good Opinion Once Lost Is Lost Forever

    Jane is at last well enough to come downstairs, which suits everyone but the ladies who invited her. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 11 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which Elizabeth goes hunting for something in Mr. Darcy to laugh at, and he hands her the one flaw he admits he cannot cure. Bingley devotes himself to Jane by the fire while his sister tries every lure on Darcy: a book chosen because it is the second volume of his, hints about the coming ball, and finally a graceful turn about the room that fails to catch his eye until she recruits Elizabeth to walk with her. That works, and the evening sharpens into the novel's first real duel over Darcy's character. Darcy guesses aloud the only two motives the ladies could have for walking the room together, and Caroline demands punishment for such impertinence; Elizabeth's remedy is to laugh at him, if a fault can be found.Pressed to supply one, Darcy offers his temper: too little yielding, resentful, his good opinion once lost, lost for ever.Elizabeth settles on his defect, a propensity to hate everybody; he returns the compliment, hers being wilfully to misunderstand them.Caroline breaks up the sparring by calling for music, and Darcy privately concludes that Elizabeth has had attention enough: he begins to feel the danger of paying her too much.

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 11: My Good Opinion Once Lost Is Lost Forever

  6. 20 hr ago

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 10: Sparring Over the Writing Desk

    Another evening at Netherfield, and the drawing-room becomes a fencing hall. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 10 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which Mr. Darcy tries to write one letter to his sister and finds the room will not let him. Caroline Bingley supplies a running commentary on the letter: his even handwriting, his charmingly long sentences, her raptures for dear Georgiana. From there the talk widens into a debate that is really about character, with Bingley's carelessness and quickness to yield on one side, Darcy's distrust of easy persuasion on the other, and Elizabeth delighting in the difference. Caroline's flattery bounces off Darcy sentence by sentence, down to her offer to mend his pen; he thanks her and says he always mends his own.Bingley calls his own writing careless and his ideas too fast for his pen; Elizabeth spots the humility that is really an indirect boast, and Darcy prosecutes the point at length.When Caroline strikes up a lively Scotch air, Darcy asks Elizabeth whether she feels a great inclination to seize the chance of dancing a reel. She answers that she had made up her mind to say no, so that he cannot despise her taste, and he has never been so bewitched by any woman in his life.On a walk next day, Caroline entertains Darcy with visions of his future mother-in-law; when the path has room for only three, Elizabeth laughingly runs off, and the picture she makes does his resolve no good at all.

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 10: Sparring Over the Writing Desk

  7. 20 hr ago

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 9: Mrs. Bennet Comes to Call

    Jane is mending, which will never do. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 9 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which Mrs. Bennet arrives at Netherfield to confirm, with satisfaction, that her daughter is far too ill to be moved anywhere near home. What follows is Elizabeth's private nightmare: her mother in full flow before the very audience she most needs to impress. Mrs. Bennet praises Bingley's sweetness, boasts of Jane's beauty and former admirers, and takes loud offense at an imagined slight to country society. Elizabeth blushes, deflects, changes the subject, and cannot stop any of it. Mrs. Bennet inspects the patient and finds her exactly ill enough: too unwell to travel, perfectly placed to stay where Mr. Bingley is.A skirmish over town versus country breaks out when Darcy observes that country society is confined and unvarying, and Mrs. Bennet takes up arms on behalf of dining with four-and-twenty families.Trying to steer her mother to safety, Elizabeth lands on Jane's old admirer who wrote verses to her, then rescues the moment with her theory that one good sonnet will starve a slight, thin sort of inclination entirely.Lydia, a stout, well-grown girl of fifteen, closes the visit by extracting a public promise from Bingley: a ball at Netherfield as soon as Jane is recovered.

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 9: Mrs. Bennet Comes to Call

  8. 20 hr ago

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 8: The Truly Accomplished Woman

    With Jane upstairs ill, Elizabeth is now a houseguest in the enemy camp. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 8 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: an evening in the Netherfield drawing-room where the conversation is elegant and the knives are out. The moment Elizabeth leaves the room, the Bingley sisters marvel at her wild appearance, her blowsy hair, and a petticoat six inches deep in mud. Bingley saw nothing but a face improved by exercise, and Darcy admits the walk brightened her eyes. The sisters then aim lower, at an uncle near Cheapside, and Darcy agrees that such connections must very materially lessen the Bennet girls' chances of marrying men of any consideration. Caroline pronounces Elizabeth's cross-country walk an abominable display of conceited independence, then invites Darcy to agree that it has dimmed his admiration; he declines the opening.Bingley shrugs off the low relations: if the girls had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside, it would not make them one jot less agreeable.The famous accomplishments debate: Bingley's list of painted tables and netted purses, Caroline's catalogue of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, and Darcy's final requirement, the improvement of the mind by extensive reading.Elizabeth declares she never saw such a woman as they describe and wonders at their knowing any, leaving Caroline to mutter about young ladies who recommend themselves by undervaluing their own sex.

    Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 8: The Truly Accomplished Woman
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About

pplpod is a podcast about people, places and lots of other stuff. Each episode takes a deep dive into the lives, choices, and legacies of fascinating figures from history, culture, music, and beyond. From icons who shaped entire generations to hidden stories that deserve the spotlight, pplpod brings you closer to the people behind the headlines and the legends. Thoughtful, engaging, and story-driven, pplpod explores what makes these lives extraordinary—and what we can learn from them today.

Information

  • Creator
    pplpod
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    2k
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © pplpod
  • Show Website
    pplpod

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