Lost Illusions: Two Poets: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Lost Illusions: Two Poets, credited to Honoré de Balzac, 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 Lost Illusions: Two Poets by Honoré de Balzac. (Translated by Ellen Marriage.) Read in English by Bruce Pirie Two Poets (1837) is the first book in Balzac’s Lost Illusions trilogy, which is part of his sweeping set of novels collectively titled La Comédie Humaine. The story is set in post-Napoleonic France, when the new bourgeoisie was jostling for position alongside the old aristocracy. We meet Lucien Chardon, a young provincial who romantically aspires to be a poet, and his friend David Séchard, who struggles to manage his father’s printing shop and falls in love with Lucien’s sister Ève. The picture of provincial life that emerges is laced with greed, ambition, and duplicity. Balzac’s work was hugely influential in the development of realism in fiction, and indeed in creating our sense of 19th-century European culture. Oscar Wilde archly said, “The 19th century, as we know it, is largely an invention of Balzac’s.” The Lost Illusions trilogy is one of his greatest achievements, and is named in the reference work 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. The two other volumes in the trilogy are A Distinguished Provincial at Paris (1839) and Ève and David (1843). (Summary by Bruce Pirie)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Lost Illusions: Two Poets
• Author credits: Honoré de Balzac
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 13
• Listed recording duration: 6:22:36

Catalogue topics

• greed
• realism
• hypocrisy
• ambition
• bourgeoisie
• 19th century france
• provincial france
• literary life

Track guide

1. 01 - Chapter 1 — 32:38
2. 02 - Chapter 2 — 26:58
3. 03 - Chapter 3 — 26:47
4. 04 - Chapter 4 — 38:48
5. 05 - Chapter 5 — 24:41
6. 06 - Chapter 6 — 22:42
7. 07 - Chapter 7 — 25:53
8. 08 - Chapter 8 — 28:30
9. 09 - Chapter 9 — 35:59
10. 10 - Chapter 10 — 30:32
11. 11 - Chapter 11 — 23:35
12. 12 - Chapter 12 — 29:06
13. 13 - Chapter 13 — 36:26

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.