Life in the Clearings: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Life in the Clearings, credited to Moodie, Susanna, 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 Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush read by Esther. As a middle class Englishwoman Moodie did not particularly enjoy “the bush”, as she called it. She and her husband moved to Belleville in 1840, which she referred to as “the clearings”. Here she described urban life, including religion, art, and education, especially as compared to relative lack of these things in “the bush”. She studied the Family Compact and became sympathetic to the moderate reformers led by Robert Baldwin, while remaining critical of radical reformers such as William Lyon Mackenzie. This caused problems for her husband, who shared her views, but, as sheriff of Belleville, had to work with members and supporters of the Family Compact. (Summary from Wikipedia)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Life in the Clearings
• Author credits: Moodie, Susanna
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 20
• Listed recording duration: 11:20:44

Catalogue topics

• Emmigration
• history
• pioneers

Track guide

1. 00 - Introduction — 14:33
2. 01 - Belleville — 1:08:59
3. 02 - Local Improvements- Sketches of Society — 58:56
4. 03 - Free Schools--Thoughts on Education — 23:23
5. 04 - Amusements — 29:23
6. 05 - Trials of a Travelling Musician — 24:47
7. 06 - The Singing Master — 44:27
8. 07 - Camp Meetings — 46:40
9. 08 - Wearing Mourning for the Dead — 30:18
10. 09 - Odd Characters — 27:45
11. 10 - Grace Marks — 46:13
12. 11 - Michael Macbride — 37:06
13. 12 - Jeanie Burns — 24:07
14. 13 - Lost Children — 17:24
15. 14 - Toronto — 33:55
16. 15 - Lunatic Asylum — 26:35
17. 16 - Provincial Agricultural Show — 28:51
18. 17 - Niagara — 46:04
19. 18 - Goat Island — 27:24
20. 19 - Conclusion — 24:04

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.