Scenes from a Courtesan's Life: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Scenes from a Courtesan's Life, credited to Honoré de Balzac, 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 Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honoré de Balzac. (Translated by Ellen Marriage.)Read in English by Bruce Pirie Scenes from a Courtesan's Life is one of the last great works completed by Balzac for his huge novel series entitled The Human Comedy. Sections of this book, in various groupings and with various titles, were published between 1838 and 1847. It eventually settled into the four sections found in the present edition. The French title — Splendeurs et misères des courtesanes — literally, Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans — has also been translated as A Harlot High and Low. The story picks up at the end of Lost Illusions (1843), an earlier novel by Balzac. At the end of that book, Lucien de Rubempré (born Lucien Chardon), a young provincial poet with great ambitions but feeble moral will, was heading for Paris in the company of a mysterious Spanish priest. In the present book, we quickly discover that the "Spanish priest" is actually Jacques Collin, alias "Vautrin," a master criminal first introduced to readers in Balzac's Father Goriot (1835). Lucien develops a relationship with Esther van Gobseck, a prostitute (the "courtesan" of the title). With these three main figures — Lucien, Vautrin, and Esther — Balzac explores the corruption of the aristocracy, the world of prostitution, the courts, and the prisons of 19th-century Paris. With masterful depictions of society and individual psychology, Balzac is considered a father of realism in fiction. - Summary by Bruce Pirie

Recording facts

• Recording title: Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
• Author credits: Honoré de Balzac
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 68
• Listed recording duration: 22:52:30

Catalogue topics

• paris
• prisons
• corruption
• realism
• hypocrisy
• 19th-century france
• judicial system
• courts

Opening tracks: first 24 of 68

1. 01 - Esther Happy - 1 — 15:55
2. 02 - Esther Happy - 2 — 30:46
3. 03 - Esther Happy - 3 — 27:53
4. 04 - Esther Happy - 4 — 18:57
5. 05 - Esther Happy - 5 — 28:13
6. 06 - Esther Happy - 6 — 23:16
7. 07 - Esther Happy - 7 — 20:22
8. 08 - Esther Happy - 8 — 13:58
9. 09 - Esther Happy - 9 — 20:00
10. 10 - Esther Happy - 10 — 18:18
11. 11 - Esther Happy - 11 — 25:14
12. 12 - Esther Happy - 12 — 11:27
13. 13 - Esther Happy - 13 — 22:54
14. 14 - Esther Happy - 14 — 23:06
15. 15 - Esther Happy - 15 — 18:02
16. 16 - Esther Happy - 16 — 25:27
17. 17 - Esther Happy - 17 — 12:56
18. 18 - Esther Happy - 18 — 18:38
19. 19 - Esther Happy - 19 — 14:29
20. 20 - Esther Happy - 20 — 9:08
21. 21 - What Love Costs an Old Man - 1 — 19:39
22. 22 - What Love Costs an Old Man - 2 — 30:13
23. 23 - What Love Costs an Old Man - 3 — 18:13
24. 24 - What Love Costs an Old Man - 4 — 22:33

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.