Mr. Harrison's Confessions: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Mr. Harrison's Confessions, credited to Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, 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 Mr. Harrison's Confessions by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. Read in English by NoelBadrian. It is asserted that the inspiration for Elizabeth Gaskell's marvellous stories of Cranford was her childhood home of Knutsford, a small town in Cheshire and to where she returned for a while as a young woman. This assertion is born out by an essay she wrote in 1849 entitled The Last Generation in England, in which she writes about "The town in which I once resided ...". There can be little doubt when reading this that it provided her with the template for Cranford. In 1851 the year she began to write Cranford, she also wrote a novella entitled Mr. Harrison's Confessions. It describes the life of a country doctor in a small provincial town. Mrs. Gaskell's model for this town could also only have been Knutsford which she knew and loved so well. The story revolves around the arrival in the town of a young doctor and the attempts of the ladies of the town to place his status within their society and of course to find him a suitable wife. It is often thought of as a prequel to Cranford. Both of these pieces together with the novels, My Lady Ludlow and Cranford were used by the BBC to create the Television series Cranford in 2007. (Summary by Noel Badrian)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Mr. Harrison's Confessions
• Author credits: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 10
• Listed recording duration: 3:49:15

Catalogue topics

• marriage
• victorian
• cranford
• cheshire
• doctor
• essay plus novella
• society and manners
• provincial town

Track guide

1. 00 - The Last Generation in England — 22:14
2. 01 - Chapters 1 and 2 — 31:20
3. 02 - Chapters 3 and 4 — 17:43
4. 03 - Chapters 5 and 6 — 24:55
5. 04 - Chapters 7 and 8 — 21:25
6. 05 - Chapters 9 to 13 — 19:37
7. 06 - Chapter 14 — 24:22
8. 07 - Chapters 15 to 19 — 21:32
9. 08 - Chapters 20 to 24 — 21:56
10. 09 - Chapters 25 to 31 — 24:11

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.