Selected Poems: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Selected Poems, credited to Christina & Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 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 Selected Poems, by Christina & Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Read by Leonard Wilson. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) and his sister Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894) played important roles in the artistic milieu of Victorian England. Members of a highly cultured Italian immigrant family, they achieved widespread fame and exerted a significant influence upon the poetry and art of their time. Dante Gabriel was a co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of painters, contributing to a renewed interest in medieval themes and techniques. Both his painting and his poetry anticipated the Aesthetic movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His deep intellect and highly emotional nature are reflected in poems that exhibit a combination of complex symbolism and powerful feeling. He was a master of the sonnet form, as best exemplified in his book The House of Life. Christina served as a model for some of her brother’s early paintings, and she was closely identified with the Pre-Raphaelites. Her poetry is more accessible and displays perhaps a greater felicity of expression than her brother’s. Today she holds a higher reputation, often being ranked (sometimes rather condescendingly) among the leading women poets. Other critics, quite appropriately, consider her a major poet without the feminine label. A deeply devout person, she never married, although she eventually rejected two suitors, both for religious reasons. She produced a large body of Christian poetry, which is not represented in this collection. She also wrote many delightful poems for children. (Summary by Leonard Wilson)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Selected Poems
• Author credits: Christina & Dante Gabriel Rossetti
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 35
• Listed recording duration: 1:48:28

Catalogue topics

• pre-raphaelites
• Victorian era
• English poetry
• Rossetti.

Opening tracks: first 24 of 35

1. 01 - Silent Noon — 1:46
2. 02 - A Birthday — 1:22
3. 03 - A Little While — 1:49
4. 04 - Remember — 1:24
5. 05 - My Sister's Sleep — 3:55
6. 06 - Maude Clare — 2:45
7. 07 - Sudden Light — 1:23
8. 08 - Dream Land — 1:56
9. 09 - Soul's Beauty — 1:37
10. 10 - Body's Beauty — 1:39
11. 11 - Goblin Market — 23:13
12. 12 - Autumn Song — 1:25
13. 13 - Song — 1:17
14. 14 - The Choice I, II, & III — 4:03
15. 15 - After Death — 1:41
16. 16 - The Love Letter — 1:34
17. 17 - No, Thank You, John — 2:13
18. 18 - The Hill Summit — 1:34
19. 19 - Love from the North — 2:27
20. 20 - The Blessed Damozel — 7:44
21. 21 - At Home — 2:29
22. 22 - A Day of Love — 1:35
23. 23 - Last Night — 2:51
24. 24 - Insomnia — 1:56

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.