A Hazard of New Fortunes: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

A Hazard of New Fortunes, credited to William Dean Howells, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of A Hazard of New Fortunes by William Dean Howells. Read in English by Nicholas Clifford Howell’s novel is set in New York of the late nineteenth century, a city familiar to readers of Edith Wharton and Henry James. Basil March, a businessman from Boston of a literary bent, moves with his family to New York to edit a new journal founded by an acquaintance. Its financial support, however, comes from a Mr. Dryfoos, a Pennsylvania Dutch farmer suddenly become millionaire by the discovery of natural gas on his property, and now living in New York with his family in a style he hopes will befit his new wealth. Is it his new fortune that presents a hazard? Or is it the new wealth of New York City in the Gilded Age? Both March and his literary creator are increasingly aware of some of the social and economic contradictions that beset the city of the time (though some of Howell’s analysis sounds as if it well might fit New York today). Characters such as, among others, Dryfoos’s children, a German socialist immigrant who fought for the Union cause, an impoverished Southern colonel still persuaded that a reformed slavery might work, a young woman drawn from the upper reaches of Old New York society, help to enrich the story and its setting with their differing viewpoints. ( Nicholas Clifford)

Recording facts

• Recording title: A Hazard of New Fortunes
• Author credits: William Dean Howells
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 63
• Listed recording duration: 16:35:48

Catalogue topics

• new york
• social problems

Opening tracks: first 24 of 63

1. 00 - Bibliographical — 8:35
2. 01 - Part First I — 18:34
3. 02 - II — 8:52
4. 03 - III — 6:50
5. 04 - IV — 14:33
6. 05 - V — 10:17
7. 06 - VI — 8:02
8. 07 - VII — 23:52
9. 08 - VIII — 22:06
10. 09 - VIX — 9:09
11. 10 - X — 18:51
12. 11 - XI — 28:52
13. 12 - XII — 24:46
14. 13 - Part Second I — 18:39
15. 14 - II — 12:10
16. 15 - III — 15:45
17. 16 - IV — 10:05
18. 17 - V — 7:41
19. 18 - VI — 16:27
20. 19 - VII — 10:41
21. 20 - VIII — 25:13
22. 21 - IX — 10:43
23. 22 - X — 17:06
24. 23 - XI — 25:23

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.