Modern Essays: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Modern Essays, credited to Christopher Morley, 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 Modern Essays by Christopher Morley. Read in English by David Wales Thirty three essays by more or less well-known authors of Britain, the United States, and Canada, each fronted by an introductory paragraph. Early twentieth or late nineteenth centuries. “I think I can offer you, in this parliament of philomaths [lover of learning], entertainment of the most genuine sort;…as brilliant and sincere work is being done to-day in the essay as in any period of our literature. Accordingly the pieces reprinted here are very diverse. There is the grand manner; there is foolery; there is straightforward literary criticism; there is pathos, politics, and the picturesque. But every selection is, in its own way, a work of art. And I would call the reader's attention to this: that the greater number of these essays were written not by retired æsthetes, but by practising journalists in the harness of the daily or weekly press.” The listener is alerted to the fact that some of the essays have been edited from the original, some lightly, others quite heavily. Published in 1921. ( Author's Preface and david wales)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Modern Essays
• Author credits: Christopher Morley
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 34
• Listed recording duration: 9:41:24

Catalogue topics

• United States
• Canada
• essays
• Britain
• early 20th century

Opening tracks: first 24 of 34

1. 00 - Preface — 9:59
2. 01 - American Literature — 30:43
3. 02 - Mary White — 12:51
4. 03 - Niagara Falls — 15:05
5. 04 - The Almost Perfect State — 16:08
6. 05 - The Man O'War's 'er 'usband — 17:30
7. 06 - The Market — 11:03
8. 07 - Holy Ireland — 21:11
9. 08 - A Familiar Preface — 21:19
10. 09 - On Drawing — 7:56
11. 10 - O. Henry — 23:04
12. 11 - The Mowing Of A Field — 25:27
13. 12 - The Student Life — 29:22
14. 13 - The Decline Of The Drama — 12:58
15. 14 - America And The English Tradition — 9:58
16. 15 - The Russian Quarter — 19:20
17. 16 - A Word For Autumn — 6:51
18. 17 - A Clergyman — 16:57
19. 18 - Samuel Butler — 37:48
20. 19 - Bed-Books And Night-Lights — 16:26
21. 20 - The Precept Of Peace — 17:58
22. 21 - On Lying Awake At Night — 11:10
23. 22 - A Woodland Valentine — 8:51
24. 23 - The Elements Of Poetry — 8:00

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Source and rights

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