Hedda Gabler (version 2): Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Hedda Gabler (version 2), credited to Henrik Ibsen, 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 Hedda Gabler (version 2) by Henrik Ibsen. (Translated by Edmund Gosse; William Archer.) Read in English by Expatriate Hedda Gabler has just returned from her honeymoon. She has married out of ennui, and is already heartily sick of her husband, who is a plodding, pedantic academic. Upon moving into her new Christiania home, she soon discovers that Thea Elvsted, an old schoolmate whom she always envied and despised, has boldly left her marriage in order to be with Eilert Lövborg, a former lover of Hedda who is trying to overcome a past life of debauchery and alcoholism by creating a revolutionary new work of philosophy and returning to respectability. Another old flame, Judge Brack, tries to wheedle his way back into Hedda’s life by any means possible. Yearning to exercise power over someone, anyone, to “mould a human destiny,” Hedda begins callously to manipulate the people around her to devastating effect. Written at the height of Ibsen’s mature period, this play has endured as one of the most-performed and most powerful of all Ibsen’s works. Hedda is both perpetrator and victim, a psychologically-complex, frustrated woman trying to assert some control over her world. ( Expatriate)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Hedda Gabler (version 2)
• Author credits: Henrik Ibsen
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 5
• Listed recording duration: 3:27:24

Catalogue topics

• Scandinavian literature
• henrik ibsen
• norwegian literature

Track guide

1. 00 - Translator's Introduction — 23:44
2. 01 - Act I — 1:01:56
3. 02 - Act II — 53:39
4. 03 - Act III — 35:31
5. 04 - Act IV — 32:34

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.