Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous, credited to Sarah Knowles Bolton, 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 Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous, by Sarah Knowles Bolton. Read by Librivox volunteers. These characters have been chosen from various countries and from varied professions, that the youth who read this book may see that poverty is no barrier to success. It usually develops ambition, and nerves people to action. Life at best has much of struggle, and we need to be cheered and stimulated by the careers of those who have overcome obstacles. If Lincoln and Garfield, both farmer-boys, could come to the Presidency, then there is a chance for other farmer-boys. If Ezra Cornell, a mechanic, could become the president of great telegraph companies, and leave millions to a university, then other mechanics can come to fame. If Sir Titus Salt, working and sorting wool in a factory at nineteen, could build one of the model towns of the world for his thousands of workingmen, then there is encouragement and inspiration for other toilers in factories. These lives show that without WORK and WILL no great things are achieved. I have selected several characters because they were the centres of important historical epochs. With Garibaldi is necessarily told the story of Italian unity; with Garrison and Greeley, the fall of slavery; and with Lincoln and Sheridan, the battles of our Civil War. (Summary by Sarah K. Bolton)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous
• Author credits: Sarah Knowles Bolton
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 28
• Listed recording duration: 9:31:13

Catalogue topics

• biography
• history

Opening tracks: first 24 of 28

1. 01 - George Peabody — 19:37
2. 02 - Bayard Taylor — 22:19
3. 03 - Captain James B. Eads — 11:03
4. 04 - James Watt — 21:31
5. 05 - Sir Josiah Mason — 12:10
6. 06 - Bernard Palissy — 16:43
7. 07 - Bertel Thorwaldsen — 11:54
8. 08 - Wolfgang Mozart — 14:12
9. 09 - Samuel Johnson — 10:35
10. 10 - Oliver Goldsmith — 10:54
11. 11 - Michael Faraday — 24:29
12. 12 - Sir Henry Bessemer — 16:28
13. 13 - Sir Titus Salt — 9:28
14. 14 - Joseph Marie Jacquard — 11:07
15. 15 - Horace Greeley — 29:39
16. 16 - William Lloyd Garrison — 33:20
17. 17 - Giuseppe Garibaldi — 23:04
18. 18 - Jean Paul Richter — 29:16
19. 19 - Leon Gambetta — 22:09
20. 20 - David G. Farragut — 24:28
21. 21 - Ezra Cornell — 21:49
22. 22 - Lieut.-General Sheridan — 28:48
23. 23 - Thomas Cole — 21:22
24. 24 - Ole Bull — 27:00

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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.