Poems on Slavery: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Poems on Slavery, credited to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 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 Poems on Slavery by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Read in English by aniroo; garyleosmith; Joelee Pasztor; Chris Pyle; Nemo; Emma Charlotte This is a short volume of abolitionist poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, first published in 1842. As Wikipedia notes, Longfellow himself was not entirely satisfied with his work: "However, as Longfellow himself wrote, the poems were 'so mild that even a Slaveholder might read them without losing his appetite for breakfast'. A critic for The Dial agreed, calling it 'the thinnest of all Mr. Longfellow's thin books; spirited and polished like its forerunners; but the topic would warrant a deeper tone'. The New England Anti-Slavery Association, however, was satisfied enough with the collection to reprint it for further distribution." Despite these shortcomings, however, this volume is of historical importance and will interest many listeners. - Summary by Carolin

Recording facts

• Recording title: Poems on Slavery
• Author credits: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 9
• Listed recording duration: 15:45

Catalogue topics

• poetry
• America
• slavery
• poem
• USA
• abolitionism
• anti-slavery
• 2017

Track guide

1. 00 - The Noble Horse, by Philip Massinger — 0:59
2. 01 - To William E. Channing — 1:10
3. 03 - The Good Part — 1:40
4. 04 - The Slave in the Dismal Swamp — 1:33
5. 05 - The Slave singing at Midnight — 1:18
6. 06 - The Witnesses — 2:02
7. 07 - The Quadroon Girl — 2:58
8. 02 - The Slave's Dream — 2:39
9. 08 - The Warning — 1:28

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.