Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, volume 4: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, volume 4, credited to Various, 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 The Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, by Charles Dudley Warner, ed. The Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, is a work of enormous proportions. Setting out with the simple goal of offering "American households a mass of good reading", the editors drew from literature of all times and all kinds what they considered the best pieces of human writing, and compiled an ambitious collection of 45 volumes (with a 46th being an index-guide). Besides the selection and translation of a huge number of poems, letters, short stories and sections of books, the collection offers, before each chapter, a short essay about the author or subject in question. In many cases, chapters contemplate not one author, but certain groups of works, organized by nationality, subject or period; there is, thus, a chapter on Accadian-Babylonian literature, one on the Holy Grail, and one on Chansons, for example. The result is a collection that holds the interest, for the variety of subjects and forms, but also as a means of first contact with such famous and important authors that many people have heard of, but never read, such as Abelard, Dante or Lord Byron. According to the editor Charles Dudley Warner, this collection "is not a library of reference only, but a library to be read." This fourth volume contains chapters from "Banim" to "Birrell". (Summary by Leni)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, volume 4
• Author credits: Various
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 54
• Combined MP3 track duration: 21:59:46

Catalogue topics

• compilation
• collection
• fiction

Opening tracks: first 24 of 54

1. 01 - The Publican's Dream, by John and Michael Banim — 41:29
2. 02 - Selected poems, by John and Michael Banim — 6:00
3. 03 - Selected works, by Théodore de Banville — 18:02
4. 04 - Against Inconsistency in Our Expectations, by Anna Laetitia Barbauld — 18:30
5. 05 - A Dialogue of the Dead, by Anna Laetitia Barbauld — 10:59
6. 06 - Selected poems, by Anna Laetitia Barbauld — 3:29
7. 07 - The Courtier's Life (Second Eclogue), by Alexander Barclay — 27:50
8. 08 - As I Laye A-Thynkynge, by Richard Harris Barham — 22:45
9. 09 - The Lay of St. Cuthbert, by Richard Harris Barham — 30:40
10. 10 - A Lay of St. Nicholas, by Richard Harris Barham — 16:24
11. 11 - Selected excerpts, by Sabine Baring-Gould — 34:39
12. 12 - Selected excerpts, by Jane Barlow — 42:53
13. 13 - A Feast, by Joel Barlow — 20:38
14. 14 - Selected works, by William Barnes — 16:34
15. 15 - The Courtin' of T'nowhead's Bell, by James Matthew Barrie — 51:09
16. 16 - Selected excerpts, by James Matthew Barrie — 38:56
17. 17 - Selected excerpts, by Frédéric Bastiat — 27:09
18. 18 - Essay on Charles Baudelaire, by Grace King — 24:58
19. 19 - Selected poems, by Charles Baudelaire — 7:45
20. 20 - The Painter of Modern Life, by Charles Baudelaire — 9:39
21. 21 - Selected excerpts, by Charles Baudelaire — 8:20
22. 22 - Essay on Lord Beaconsfield, by Isa Carrington Cabell — 16:35
23. 23 - A Day at Ems, by Lord Beaconsfield — 10:02
24. 24 - Excerpts from 'The Young Duke' by Lord Beaconsfield — 28:33

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