A Vital Question, or, What is to be Done?: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

A Vital Question, or, What is to be Done?, credited to Nikolai Chernyshevsky, 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 Vital Question, or, What is to be Done? by Nikolai Chernyshevsky. (Translated by Nathan Haskell Dole; Simon S. Skidelsky.) Read in English by Expatriate Despised by Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, What Is To Be Done? is a fascinating, sympathetic story of idealistic revolutionaries in mid-nineteenth century tsarist Russia; translator Nathan Haskell Dole affirms in his preface his conviction that it is a thriller that no one can put down once s/he begins it. Its variegated cast of characters includes Vera Pavlovna, a boldly independent woman in a time of great oppression, and the inspirational radical Rakhmetov. The author wrote the novel from the depths of the infamous Peter & Paul Fortress of St. Petersburg, the Abu Ghraib of tsarist Russia, and later spent many years of exile in Siberia. Dostoyevsky disparaged Chernyshevsky's novel repeatedly, most notably in The Possessed (as sort of bedside reading material for some of the more despicable characters) and in Notes From Underground. Chernyshevsky's legacy, however, was in inspiring an ascetic, self-abnegating radicalism in later revolutionaries and activists. - Summary by Expatriate

Recording facts

• Recording title: A Vital Question, or, What is to be Done?
• Author credits: Nikolai Chernyshevsky
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 101
• Listed recording duration: 18:45:24

Catalogue topics

• Russian Literature
• revolutionary literature

Opening tracks: first 24 of 101

1. 000 - Translators' Preface — 13:58
2. 001 - Introduction: Chapter 01 — 6:55
3. 002 - Introduction: Chapter 02 — 10:14
4. 003 - Introduction: Chapter 03 — 6:46
5. 004 - Part I: Chapter 01a — 13:24
6. 005 - Part I: Chapter 01b — 13:56
7. 006 - Part I: Chapter 02 — 12:10
8. 007 - Part I: Chapter 03 — 7:46
9. 008 - Part I: Chapter 04 — 11:53
10. 009 - Part I: Chapter 05 — 8:36
11. 010 - Part I: Chapter 06 — 6:44
12. 011 - Part I: Chapter 07 — 8:57
13. 012 - Part I: Chapter 08 — 11:10
14. 013 - Part I: Chapter 09 — 11:10
15. 014 - Part II: Chapter 01 — 8:25
16. 015 - Part II: Chapter 02 — 9:22
17. 016 - Part II: Chapter 03 — 7:44
18. 017 - Part II: Chapter 04 — 14:59
19. 018 - Part II: Chapter 05 — 7:37
20. 019 - Part II: Chapter 06 — 9:34
21. 020 - Part II: Chapter 07 — 13:32
22. 021 - Part II: Chapter 08 — 13:05
23. 022 - Part II: Chapter 09 — 11:21
24. 023 - Part II: Chapter 10 — 10:07

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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.