Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, credited to Samuel Johnson, 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 Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, by Samuel Johnson. Read by Martin Geeson. In this enchanting fable (subtitled The Choice of Life), Rasselas and his retinue burrow their way out of the totalitarian paradise of the Happy Valley in search of that triad of eighteenth-century aspiration - life, liberty and happiness. According to that quirky authority, James Boswell, Johnson penned his only work of prose fiction in a handful of days to cover the cost of his mother's funeral. The stylistic elegance of the book and its wide-ranging philosophical concerns give no hint of haste or superficiality. Among other still burning issues Johnson's characters pursue questions of education, colonialism, the nature of the soul and even climate alteration. Johnson's profoundest concern, however, is with the alternating attractions of solitude and social participation, seen not only as the ultimate life-choice but as the arena in which are played out the deepest fears of the individual: "Of the uncertainties of our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of Reason.” (Summary by Martin Geeson)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia
• Author credits: Samuel Johnson
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 17
• Listed recording duration: 5:30:43

Catalogue topics

• adventure
• fiction
• choice of life.

Track guide

1. 01 - Chapters I-IV — 29:55
2. 02 - Chapters V-VII — 17:45
3. 03 - Chapters VIII, IX — 16:52
4. 04 - Chapters X-XII — 29:34
5. 05 - Chapters XIII-XVI — 22:58
6. 06 - Chapters XVII-XX — 18:36
7. 07 - Chapters XXI, XXII — 14:40
8. 08 - Chapters XXIII-XXVI — 19:15
9. 09 - Chapters XXVII, XXVIII — 13:32
10. 10 - Chapters XXIX, XXX — 17:25
11. 11 - Chapters XXXI-XXXIII — 12:15
12. 12 - Chapters XXXIV-XXXVII — 23:50
13. 13 - Chapters XXXVIII, XXXIX — 24:34
14. 14 - Chapters XL-XLIII — 16:47
15. 15 - Chapters XLIV, XLV — 15:16
16. 16 - Chapters XLVI, XLVII — 23:52
17. 17 - Chapters XLVIII, XLIX — 13:42

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.