Idylls Of The Sea And Other Marine Sketches: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Idylls Of The Sea And Other Marine Sketches, credited to Frank Thomas Bullen, 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 Idylls Of The Sea And Other Marine Sketches by Frank Thomas Bullen. Read in English by David Wales In these little sketches [1899] of a few out of the innumerable multitude of ways in which the sea has spoken to me during my long acquaintance with it, I have tried with ’prentice hand to reproduce for shore-dwellers some of the things it has told me. (Author’s Preface) His whales and sharks and other monsters of the deep are creatures with whom one is proud to be associated. These Idylls—little pictures—strike me as some of the most vivid things ever written about the sea. I take it that only a man who has used the sea as a common sailor, and before the mast, really knows it in all its humours,… It is not conventionally that I have called Mr. Bullen’s work “vivid.” It is of writing such as his that we can say, and say truly: “I watch no longer—I myself am there.”… In spite of the fact that he knows so much science, and makes so keen and convincing a use of this knowledge, there is always an air of mystery and enchantment about his writing…. that a sense of something strange and fateful, and so fascinating, haunts his pictures of the sea. (Introduction) [Bullen (1857 - 1915)] led a roving and adventurous life from quite an early age, and many of the most thrilling episodes in his books were records of his own experiences. After various adventures on shore he went to sea in 1869, and for some years roughed it in various capacities in the merchant service, suffering great hardships, as vividly described in The Log of a Sea Waif and other books. (Royal Geographic Society Obituary, 1915) - Summary by David Wales

Recording facts

• Recording title: Idylls Of The Sea And Other Marine Sketches
• Author credits: Frank Thomas Bullen
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 31
• Listed recording duration: 7:22:33

Catalogue topics

• sea
• life at sea
• sea animals
• sea topography

Opening tracks: first 24 of 31

1. 00 - Dedication, Preface, and Introduction — 5:25
2. 01 - The Passing Of Peter — 13:02
3. 02 - The Loss Of The First-Born — 8:48
4. 03 - A True Shark-Story — 6:50
5. 04 - The Slaver — 12:07
6. 05 - The Cruise Of The 'Daisy' — 12:14
7. 06 - 'Running The Easting Down' — 12:28
8. 07 - In The Crow's Nest — 14:26
9. 08 - The Birth Of An Island — 12:53
10. 09 - A Submarine Earthquake — 11:44
11. 10 - The Silent Warfare Of The Submarine World — 11:07
12. 11 - An Effect Of Refraction — 10:53
13. 12 - A Waking Nightmare — 10:34
14. 13 - The Derelict — 15:49
15. 14 - Some Oceanic Birds — 14:19
16. 15 - The Kraken — 22:39
17. 16 - Concerning Sharks — 33:04
18. 17 - Flying-Fish Catching At Barbados — 13:19
19. 18 - Unconventional Fishing — 11:32
20. 19 - Devil-Fish — 20:21
21. 20 - Of Turtle — 23:33
22. 21 - 'Hovelling' — 18:26
23. 22 - The Loss Of The 'St. George' — 13:58
24. 23 - The Truth About The Merchant Service — 25:18

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

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.