Essays and Dialogues: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Essays and Dialogues, credited to Giacomo Leopardi, 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 Essays and Dialogues by Giacomo Leopardi. (Translated by Charles Edwardes.) Read in English by Mary J; Jia Jia Yong; chocmuse; Beth Thomas; Carolin Ksr; Peter Tucker; Zeeshan Reshamwala; ToddHW; Linda Dodge; Rapunzelina; Eric Metzler; Julia Niedermaier; Jack Daniel. "We would no more choose to feed the minds of our countrymen and women with the despairing utterances of the pessimist poet, than we would their bodies with hasheesh. Such melancholy as his clothed in such eloquent words may be the luxury of the idle; it is poison to those who have work to do in the world. It shuts out hope, the very spring of energy; it makes the cheerful steady pursuit of duty a thing utterly beyond human powers. For we can none of us stand alone. Either in human or divine love we must find the mainspring of all life worth living. There must be something outside of ourselves which we regard not with despair, but with hope." -- Handwritten dedication in the book, dated Feb. 19th, 1883

Recording facts

• Recording title: Essays and Dialogues
• Author credits: Giacomo Leopardi
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 33
• Listed recording duration: 7:54:42

Catalogue topics

• fiction
• dialog
• humour
• humor

Opening tracks: first 24 of 33

1. 01 - Biographical Sketch, part 1 — 26:37
2. 02 - Biographical Sketch, part 2 — 23:24
3. 03 - History of the Human Race — 27:39
4. 04 - Dialogue between Hercules and Atlas — 6:55
5. 05 - Dialogue between Fashion and Death — 6:29
6. 06 - Price Competition Announced by the Academy of Sillographs — 10:47
7. 07 - Dialogue between a Goblin and a Gnome — 7:46
8. 08 - Dialogue between Malambruno and Farfarello — 6:55
9. 09 - Dialogue between Nature and a Soul — 6:50
10. 10 - Dialogue between the Earth and the Moon — 14:17
11. 11 - The Wager of Prometheus — 23:24
12. 12 - Dialogue between a Natural Philosopher and a Metaphysician — 10:50
13. 13 - Dialogue between Tasso and his Familiar Spirit — 12:59
14. 14 - Dialogue between Nature and an Icelander — 14:34
15. 15 - Parini on Glory, Chapters I-III — 14:19
16. 16 - Parini on Glory, Chapters IV-VI — 12:32
17. 17 - Parini on Glory, Chapters VII-IX — 14:20
18. 18 - Parini on Glory, Chapters X-XII — 8:37
19. 19 - Dialogue between Frederic Ruysch and his Mummies — 14:00
20. 20 - Remarkable Sayings of Philip Ottonieri, Chapters I-III — 23:13
21. 21 - Remarkable Sayings of Philip Ottonieri, Chapters IV-VII — 23:59
22. 22 - Dialogue between Christopher Columbus and Pietro Gutierrez — 11:19
23. 23 - Panegyric of Birds — 15:03
24. 24 - The Song of the Wild Cock — 10:31

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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.