Androcles and the Lion: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Androcles and the Lion, credited to George Bernard Shaw, 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 Androcles and the Lion by George Bernard Shaw. Read in English by Phil Surette. Androcles and the Lion satirical play written in 1912 by George Bernard Shaw. It is set in Ancient Rome, and on the surface it appears to be a retelling of a parable of the same name in which a runaway slave is thrown to a lion in the Coliseum but spared because of his earlier kindness shown to that same lion in the wild. Shaw uses this Roman parable to, in his own words, represent "...the Roman persecutions of the early Christians, not as the conflict of a false theology with a true, but as what all such persecutions essentially are: an attempt to suppress a propaganda that seemed to threaten the interests involved in the established law and order..." It is a complex, quick-witted, and deeply human play which explores different types of faith through Christian martyrs with vastly different understandings of their religion -- a humanitarian naturalist, a fearless freethinker, a rigid moralist, and a blackguard debauchee -- set against upholders of the status quo who are represented by a Captain, the Emperor, and other participant in imperial cruelty, from gladiators to patricians to arena managers. - Summary by Phil Surette

Recording facts

• Recording title: Androcles and the Lion
• Author credits: George Bernard Shaw
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 4
• Listed recording duration: 1:41:45

Catalogue topics

• comedy
• satire
• play
• Roman Empire
• martyrdom
• parable
• shaw plays
• lion story (aesop)

Track guide

1. 00 - Prologue — 12:03
2. 01 - Act I — 35:24
3. 02 - Act II — 43:34
4. 03 - Unnamed Appendix — 10:45

Listen to this recording

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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.