Round the Sofa: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Round the Sofa, credited to Elizabeth 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 Round the Sofa by Elizabeth Gaskell. Read by Noel Badrian. Round the Sofa (1859), is a book of stories by the lady that Charles Dickens called his “dear Scheherazade” due to her skill as a story teller. That Lady was Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell (North and South, Wives and Daughters, Cranford etc.). Mrs. Gaskell begins with Round the Sofa, a short story which she uses as a device to stitch together six previously published stories into a single work. It introduces us to a set of characters who take turns to recount stories to one another during their weekly soirée. My Lady Ludlow tells the story of the widowed, aristocratic Lady Ludlow and her fierce resistance to change. It is told through the eyes of one of her young charges. Incidentally, it was one of the books used to create the TV series Cranford. An Accursed Race is actually an essay about a persecuted minority group, the Cagots in Western France. The Doom of the Griffiths. A Gothic short story about a cursed family and set in Wales. Half a Life-Time Ago. A novella set in the Wiltshire Dales. The Poor Clare. A Ghostly short story! The Half Brothers. A sad short story about brotherly love and a sheep-dog dog named Lassie! (Summary by Noel Badrian)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Round the Sofa
• Author credits: Elizabeth Gaskell
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 28
• Listed recording duration: 16:15:16

Catalogue topics

• audio
• gaskell
• 19th century
• england
• victorian
• social life and customs
• stories

Opening tracks: first 24 of 28

1. 01 - Round the Sofa — 17:53
2. 02 - My Lady Ludlow. Part 1 — 39:52
3. 03 - My Lady Ludlow. Part 2 — 35:26
4. 04 - My Lady Ludlow. Part 3 — 30:50
5. 05 - My Lady Ludlow. Part 4 — 30:49
6. 06 - My Lady Ludlow. Part 5 — 32:36
7. 07 - My Lady Ludlow. Part 6 — 34:01
8. 08 - My Lady Ludlow. Part 7 — 34:02
9. 09 - My Lady Ludlow. Part 8 — 37:39
10. 10 - My Lady Ludlow. Part 9 — 34:41
11. 11 - My Lady Ludlow. Part 10 — 31:47
12. 12 - My Lady Ludlow. Part 11 — 34:50
13. 13 - My Lady Ludlow. Part 12 — 44:17
14. 14 - My Lady Ludlow. Part 13 — 37:12
15. 15 - My Lady Ludlow. Part 14 — 40:41
16. 16 - An Accursed Race — 49:00
17. 17 - The Doom of the Griffiths. Part 1 — 52:55
18. 18 - The Doom of the Griffiths. Part 2 — 49:14
19. 19 - Half a Life-Time Ago. Part 1 — 39:21
20. 20 - Half a Life-Time Ago. Part 2 — 13:09
21. 21 - Half a Life-Time Ago. Part 3 — 30:20
22. 22 - Half a Life-Time Ago. Part 4 — 14:04
23. 23 - Half a Life-Time Ago. Part 5 — 26:24
24. 24 - The Poor Clare. Part 1 — 33:37

Listen to this recording

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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.