Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent.: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent., credited to Washington Irving, 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 Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent., by Washington Irving. Read by James K. White. The Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent. (1824) is a compilation of eight humorous and observational letters written by American writer, Washington Irving, under the pseudonym, Jonathan Oldstyle. These eight letters and one additional were first published as a series of "Letters to the Editor" of the New York paper, The Morning Chronicle, between 1802 and 1803. In them Oldstyle skewered the local New York social scene on the topics of etiquette, marriage, fashion, and other particulars of human interaction. Most of Oldstyle's observations took place in the theatre, but really had less to do with that venue and more to do with an analysis of men and women acting out their own particular roles in life. At times this letter-writing Oldstyle had a bit of help from his good friend, the inimitable Andrew Quoz (another of Irving's personae). Together they subverted the status quo of theatre criticism in New York, and placed social behavior in the limelight, figuratively speaking. These letters were Irving's first foray into published writing; he was 19 at the time. He would later pen Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. (Summary by James K. White, Gent.)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent.
• Author credits: Washington Irving
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 9
• Listed recording duration: 1:38:00

Catalogue topics

• humor
• commentary
• observations
• letters
• essays

Track guide

1. 00 - Biographical Notice — 12:18
2. 01 - Letter I — 7:40
3. 02 - Letter II — 10:14
4. 03 - Letter III — 12:02
5. 04 - Letter IV — 9:14
6. 05 - Letter V — 8:50
7. 06 - Letter VI — 13:21
8. 07 - Letter VII — 13:24
9. 08 - Letter VIII — 10:58

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.