Fatherland: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Fatherland, credited to Sir Henry Parkes, 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 volunteers bring you 4 recordings of Fatherland by Sir Henry Parkes. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 23rd, 2011. Sir Henry Parkes, GCMG (27 May 1815 – 27 April 1896) was an Australian statesman, the "Father of Federation." As the earliest advocate of a Federal Council of the colonies of Australia, a precursor to the Federation of Australia, he is generally considered the most prominent of the Australian Founding Fathers. Parkes was described during his lifetime by The Times as "the most commanding figure in Australian politics". Alfred Deakin described him as "though not rich or versatile, his personality was massive, durable and imposing, resting upon elementary qualities of human nature elevated by a strong mind. He was cast in the mould of a great man and though he suffered from numerous pettinesses, spites and failings, he was in himself a large-brained self-educated Titan whose natural field was found in Parliament and whose resources of character and intellect enabled him in his later years to overshadow all his contemporaries". Parkes's literary work includes six volumes of verse, Stolen Moments (1842), Murmurs of the Stream (1857), Studies in Rhyme (1870), The Beauteous Terrorist and Other Poems (1885), Fragmentary Thoughts (1889), Sonnets and Other Verses (1895). It has been the general practice to laugh at Parkes's poetic efforts, and it is true that his work could sometimes be almost unbelievably bad. Yet though he had no real claims to be a poet he wrote some weak, sincere verse which has occasionally been included in Australian anthologies. (Summary from Wikipedia.)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Fatherland
• Author credits: Sir Henry Parkes
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 4
• Listed recording duration: 6:57

Catalogue topics

• poetry
• history
• instruction,

Track guide

1. Fatherland - Read by DL — 1:43
2. Fatherland - Read by GHS — 1:44
3. Fatherland - Read by LLW — 1:55
4. Fatherland - Read by CC — 1:37

Listen to this recording

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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.