Helen of the Old House: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Helen of the Old House, credited to Harold Bell Wright, 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 Helen of the Old House by Harold Bell Wright. Read in English by Bob R Helen is not the main character; it is the mill, in this small town in the first half of the 20th century. This is a story of labor strife, class inequity and warfare, poverty and wealth, socialism vs. capitalism, and love and hatred. It centers on two families; each family includes a father and a son and a daughter. In their childhood years, they were all very close. Over time, Helen ‘s family becomes very wealthy, the other family less so. By questionable means, Helen’s father becomes the owner of the mill. He represents corporate greed at its worst. A labor organizer named Jake Vodell creates major strife. He is described as a communist and a “foreigner”. A central character is an old, injured and retired worker called the Interpreter. He attempts to make the town realize that the real enemy is neither labor nor capital; it is the extremes of capital greed and labor socialism. Such class conflict is a major backdrop in most of Harold Bell Wright’s novels. He was a best-selling author of his time. His books show how much progress we have made in technology; human behavior seems little changed - Summary by Bob Rollins

Recording facts

• Recording title: Helen of the Old House
• Author credits: Harold Bell Wright
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 30
• Listed recording duration: 10:50:53

Catalogue topics

• romance
• labor/management conflict
• early midwest america

Opening tracks: first 24 of 30

1. 01 - The Hut on the Cliff — 47:17
2. 02 - Little Maggie's Princess Lady — 17:14
3. 03 - The Interpreter — 26:44
4. 04 - Peter Martin at Home — 7:57
5. 05 - Adam Ward's Estate — 21:08
6. 06 - On the Old Road — 19:21
7. 07 - The Hidden Thing — 18:39
8. 08 - While the People Sleep — 31:10
9. 09 - The Mill — 36:23
10. 10 - Concerning the New Manager — 18:16
11. 11 - Comrades — 39:12
12. 12 - Two Sides of a Question — 16:02
13. 13 - The Awakening — 17:32
14. 14 - The Way Back — 17:32
15. 15 - At the Old House — 11:56
16. 16 - Her Own People — 22:00
17. 17 - In the Night — 12:29
18. 18 - The Gathering Storm — 19:29
19. 19 - Adam Ward's Work — 26:32
20. 20 - The People's America — 15:57
21. 21 - Peter Martin's Problem — 18:05
22. 22 - Old Friends — 20:15
23. 23 - A Last Chance — 20:02
24. 24 - The Flats — 31:33

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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.