Areopagitica: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Areopagitica, credited to John Milton, 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 Areopagitica, by John Milton. Read by Thomas A. Copeland. Areopagitica is the noblest and most extensive defense of freedom of the press in English, perhaps in any language. Although Milton was sufficiently practical to serve as a censor of books himself when his opposition to this practice was ignored by the government, he never lost his conviction that the best way to battle falsehood was to let it have its say and be defeated by the superior power of truth. Strangling infants in the cradle was simply not his style. As a teacher, he knew that stifling rational dissent leads to tyranny by stopping thought, and he placed far more trust in education than in legislation for fostering virtue and good sense. In this long essay, in the form of a five-part Classical oration addressed to Parliament (the counterpart of the Areopagus or council of elders in ancient Athens), he brings to bear on this subject a wide variety of arguments, including antique precedents, philosophical and religious considerations, and his own experience as a published author. The document presents the portrait of the idealistic heart of the British republic struggling against the political expediency that upholds government. (Summary by Thomas Copeland)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Areopagitica
• Author credits: John Milton
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 5
• Listed recording duration: 2:47:27

Catalogue topics

• oration
• freedom of speech
• freedom of expression
• freedom of the press

Track guide

1. 1 - Part 1 — 44:57
2. 2 - Part 2 — 42:34
3. 3 - Part 3 — 36:24
4. 4 - Life of Milton — 29:37
5. 5 - Introduction — 13:58

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.