Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions Together With Death's Duel: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions Together With Death's Duel, credited to John Donne, 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 Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions Together With Death's Duel by John Donne. Read by David Wales. Devotions upon Emergent Occasions is a 1624 prose work by the English theologian and writer John Donne, Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. It is a series of reflections that were written as Donne recovered from a serious illness. The work consists of twenty-three parts ('devotions') describing each stage of the sickness. Each part is further divided into a Meditation, an Expostulation (or objection) , and a Prayer. The work is an excellent example of seventeenth century English spirituality and sometimes feels a bit dated. Yet much solid nourishment can be found. “Death’s Duel” is Donne’s last sermon prepared for presentation before the King during Lent; it is commonly seen as Donne’s own funeral oration. The biographical material is from Izaak Walton’s Lives. The most famous part of the Devotions is number XVII (17), containing these lines: No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. (Summary by Wikipedia and David Wales)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions Together With Death's Duel
• Author credits: John Donne
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 27
• Listed recording duration: 9:11:02

Catalogue topics

• theology
• illness
• death
• Anglican
• Death's Duel
• seventeenth century
• no man is an island
• for whom the bell tolls

Opening tracks: first 24 of 27

1. 01 Part 1 The Life of Dr John Donne Section 1 — 1:00:27
2. 02 Part 1 The Life of Dr John Donne Section 2 — 47:36
3. 03 Part 2 Devotions - Introduction — 5:34
4. 04 Devotion 1 — 12:32
5. 05 Devotion 2 — 11:40
6. 06 Devotion 3 — 14:37
7. 07 Devotion IV (4) — 17:13
8. 08 Devotion V (5) — 14:07
9. 09 Devotion VI (6) — 18:07
10. 10 Devotion VII (7) — 17:37
11. 11 Devotion VIII (8) — 16:01
12. 12 Dotion IX (9)ev — 15:34
13. 13 Devotion X (10) — 16:07
14. 14 Devotion XI (11) — 18:29
15. 15 Devotion XII (12) — 16:01
16. 16 Devotion XII (13) — 11:51
17. 17 Devotion XIV (14) — 19:34
18. 18 Devotion XV (15) — 13:29
19. 19 Devotion XVI (16) — 12:45
20. 20 Devotion XVII (17) — 15:14
21. 21 Devotion XVIII (18) — 19:03
22. 22 Devotion XIX (19) — 22:05
23. 23 Devotion XX (20) — 15:36
24. 24 Devotion XXI (21) — 18:26

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.