Coningsby, or The New Generation: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Coningsby, or The New Generation, credited to Benjamin Disraeli, 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 Coningsby, or The New Generation by Benjamin Disraeli. Read in English by Nicholas Clifford Coningsby is the first of trilogy of political novels that Disraeli published in the 1840s, and gives an insight into his views of the political turmoil following the passage of the Great Reform Bill by the Whigs in 1832 (a second Reform Bill was passed in 1867 under Disraeli’s Tory leadership as prime minister). While Coningsby looks primarily at political questions, its successor -- Sybil, or the Two Nations -- was concerned with the “condition of England” question and the growing social and economic imbalance between rich and poor that in tje writer's view was hastened (though not begun) by the industrial revolution. Granted that Disraeli was not Dickens or Trollope or Eliot or one of the other giants of British letters in the nineteenth century, it’s a bit unfair to suggest (as some have) that the plots are thin and only there to provide the writer with a podium for setting forth his political and social views. It’s true that Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses Girl, Boy Gets Girl, but much else happens as well, particularly thanks to the role played by the mysterious figure of the Jewish Sidonia, who in addition to enormous wealth and widespread international connections embodies a kind of wisdom that transcends the mere knowledge acquired by even the best educated Englishmen. Coningsby, himself a product of both Eton and Cambridge, is fortunate enough to be taken under his wing, and intelligent enough to accept his guidance. (Nicholas Clifford) - Summary by Nicholas Clifford

Recording facts

• Recording title: Coningsby, or The New Generation
• Author credits: Benjamin Disraeli
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 32
• Listed recording duration: 17:53:20

Catalogue topics

• parliamentary politics
• political fiction
• victorian britain

Opening tracks: first 24 of 32

1. 01 - Pref. material — 8:22
2. 02 - Bk I, chaps. 1-2 — 28:10
3. 03 - Bk. 1, chaps. 3-5 — 37:03
4. 04 - Bk. I, chaps. 6-8 — 26:27
5. 05 - Bk. I, chaps. 9-10 — 28:50
6. 06 - Bk. I, chap. 11 — 14:48
7. 07 - Bk. II, chap. 1 — 43:37
8. 08 - Bk. II, chaps. 2-4 — 35:38
9. 09 - Bk. II, chaps. 5-7 — 24:22
10. 10 - Bk. III, chaps. 1-2 — 44:01
11. 11 - Bk. III, chaps. 3-4 — 36:25
12. 12 - Bk. III chap. 5; Bk. IV, chaps. 1-2 — 29:52
13. 13 - Bk. IV chaps. 3-4 — 33:53
14. 14 - Bk. IV, chaps. 5-6 — 28:31
15. 15 - Bk. IV, chaps. 7-8 — 30:36
16. 16 - Bk. IV, chaps. 9-10 — 48:07
17. 17 - Bk. IV,chaps. 11-12 — 33:19
18. 18 - Bk. IV, chaps. 13-15 — 39:24
19. 19 - Bk. IV, chap. 16; Bk. V, chaps. 1-2 — 28:33
20. 20 - Bk. V, chaps. 3-4 — 41:40
21. 21 - Bk. V, chaps. 5-7 — 35:49
22. 22 - Bk. V, chap. 8; Bk. VI, chaps. 1-2 — 39:33
23. 23 - Bk. VI, chaps, 3-8 — 52:43
24. 24 - Bk. VII, chaps. 1-2 — 41:25

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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.