Far From The Madding Crowd: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Far From The Madding Crowd, credited to Thomas Hardy, 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 Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. Read by LibriVox Volunteers. Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel and offers in ample measure the details of English rural life that Hardy so relished. Hardy's growing taste for tragedy is also evident in the novel. It first appeared, anonymously, as a monthly magazine serial, where it gained a wide readership and critical acclaim. According to Virginia Woolf, "The subject was right; the method was right; the poet and the countryman, the sensual man, the sombre reflective man, the man of learning, all enlisted to produce a book which . . . must hold its place among the great English novels." The book is often regarded as an early piece of feminist literature, since it features an independent woman with the courage to defy convention by running a farm herself. Although Bathsheba's passionate nature leads her into serious errors of judgment, Hardy endows her with sufficient resilience, intelligence, and good luck to overcome her youthful folly. (summary abstracted from Wikipedia) For more free audiobooks, or to become a volunteer reader, please visit librivox.org.

Recording facts

• Recording title: Far From The Madding Crowd
• Author credits: Thomas Hardy
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 57
• Listed recording duration: 14:40:15

Catalogue topics

• English literature
• Thomas Hardy
• Far From the Madding Crowd
• rural life
• tragedy

Opening tracks: first 24 of 57

1. 01 - Description of Farmer Oak--An Incident — 11:24
2. 02 - Night--The Flock--An Interior--Another Interior — 19:35
3. 03 - A Girl on Horseback--Conversation — 18:59
4. 04 - Gabriel's Resolve--The Visit--The Mistake — 20:26
5. 05 - Departure of Bathsheba-- A Pastoral Tragedy — 11:38
6. 06 - The Fair--The Journey--The Fire — 19:46
7. 07 - Recognition -- A Timid Girl — 9:18
8. 08 - The Malthouse -- The Chat -- News — 48:46
9. 09 - The Homestead -- A Visitor -- Half - Confidences — 15:11
10. 10 - Mistress and Men — 13:30
11. 11 - Outside the Barracks--Snow--A Meeting — 11:58
12. 12 - Farmers--A Rule--An Exception — 10:11
13. 13 - Sortes Sanctorum--The Valentine — 8:46
14. 14 - Effect of the Letter--Sunrise — 10:08
15. 15 - A Morning Meeting--The Letter Again — 22:55
16. 16 - All Saints' and All Souls' — 6:59
17. 17 - In the Market-Place — 5:39
18. 18 - Boldwood in Meditation--Regret — 10:06
19. 19 - The Sheep-Washing--The Offer — 12:27
20. 20 - Perplexity--Grinding the Shears--A Quarrel — 12:47
21. 21 - Troubles in the Fold - A Message — 12:38
22. 22 - The Great Barn and the Sheep-Shearers — 21:13
23. 23 - Eventide--A Second Declaration — 13:50
24. 24 - The Same Night--The Fir Plantation — 13:21

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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.