Ormond: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Ormond, credited to Maria Edgeworth, 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 Ormond by Maria Edgeworth. Read in English by Bruce Pirie Maria Edgeworth was one of the most popular writers of her time, a sharp and witty observer of society manners, and a favorite author for Jane Austen. “Ormond,” published in 1817, is a “coming-of-age” novel, tracing a young man’s development as he approaches the age of majority. When we meet him, Harry Ormond has his “heart in the right place,” but is unsettled of character, naïve and impulsive. The central issue is: “What kind of man will he become?” In part, Harry is influenced by the books he reads: Fielding’s “Tom Jones,” Richardson’s “Sir Charles Grandison,” and works of the French Enlightenment. More important, however, are influences from the company he keeps, much as Prince Hal in Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” takes shape as a reflection of the people around him. As an orphan, Harry had been adopted by Sir Ulick O’Shane, a man of society, full of subtlety and strategies, who exploits his public trust for private advantage (a practice known at that time as “jobbing”). Harry also spends time with Sir Ulick’s cousin Cornelius, a Falstaffian figure of hearty good cheer and eccentric rural lifestyle. (He enthrones himself on a tiny island in an Irish lake, calls himself the “King of the Black Islands” and nicknames Ormond “Prince Harry.”) Later, Harry follows Cornelius’s daughter to Paris, where he witnesses the glamorous dissipation of French society in the years before the Revolution. This novel explores the challenges of bringing together apparent oppositions: reconciling promised loyalty with assertion of self, Anglo-Irish landlords with their Irish tenants, Catholics with Protestants, and the impulsive heart with the rational head. “Ormond” is named in the reference list “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.” - Summary by Bruce Pirie

Recording facts

• Recording title: Ormond
• Author credits: Maria Edgeworth
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 32
• Listed recording duration: 13:43:36

Catalogue topics

• 18th Century
• France
• social class
• Ireland
• bildungsroman
• coming-of-age
• comedy of manners

Opening tracks: first 24 of 32

1. 01 - Chapter 1 — 33:56
2. 02 - Chapter 2 — 25:34
3. 03 - Chapter 3 — 25:02
4. 04 - Chapter 4 — 20:07
5. 05 - Chapter 5 — 16:46
6. 06 - Chapter 6 — 27:26
7. 07 - Chapter 7 — 32:17
8. 08 - Chapter 8 — 23:18
9. 09 - Chapter 9 — 16:53
10. 10 - Chapter 10 — 20:11
11. 11 - Chapter 11 — 15:25
12. 12 - Chapter 12 — 22:10
13. 13 - Chapter 13 — 28:44
14. 14 - Chapter 14 — 34:22
15. 15 - Chapter 15 — 32:07
16. 16 - Chapter 16 — 23:09
17. 17 - Chapter 17 — 20:44
18. 18 - Chapter 18 — 35:18
19. 19 - Chapter 19 — 25:58
20. 20 - Chapter 20 — 22:58
21. 21 - Chapter 21 — 24:27
22. 22 - Chapter 22 — 29:49
23. 23 - Chapter 23 — 30:49
24. 24 - Chapter 24 — 28:40

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.