Sister Carrie: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Sister Carrie, credited to Theodore Dreiser, 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 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser. Read by LibriVox Volunteers. Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945) was an American author of the naturalist school, known for dealing with the gritty reality of life. Sister Carrie (1900) is his first novel and tells the story of a young country girl who moves to the big city (Chicago) where she starts realizing her own American Dream by first becoming a mistress to powerful men and later as a famous actress. Dreiser and his wife significantly altered the original manuscript to make it more palatable to the prevailing sensibilities of the day, but even this toned down version caused a minor scandal, and Dreiser had difficulty finding a publisher for it. This was due to the blurred division line between good and bad in the plot. Although Dreiser's moralizing narrator does assert that, despite the fame and the money she has amassed, Carrie will not be able to achieve peace of mind in her life, the apparent lack of poetic justice -- the notion that immorality should pay in the end, even if only up to a point -- was a concept the reading public were altogether unused to at the time. (summary from wikipedia) For more free audiobooks, or to become a volunteer reader, please visit librivox.org.

Recording facts

• Recording title: Sister Carrie
• Author credits: Theodore Dreiser
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 47
• Listed recording duration: 17:47:16

Catalogue topics

• American literature
• fiction

Opening tracks: first 24 of 47

1. 01 - The Magnet Attracting: A Waif Amid Forces — 17:40
2. 02 - What Poverty Threatened: Of Granite and Brass — 12:20
3. 03 - We Question of Fortune: Four-Fifty a Week — 21:00
4. 04 - The Spendings of Fancy: Facts Answer with Sneers — 24:26
5. 05 - A Glittering Night Flower: The Use of a Name — 16:02
6. 06 - The Machine and the Maiden: A Knight of Today — 25:46
7. 07 - The Lure of the Material: Beauty Speeks for Itself — 24:15
8. 08 - Intimations By Winter: An Ambassador Summoned — 16:27
9. 09 - Convention's Own Tinder-Box: The Eye That Is Green — 14:59
10. 10 - The Counsel of Winter: Fortune's Ambassador Calls — 17:05
11. 11 - The Persuasion of Fashion: Feeling Guards o'er its Own — 19:45
12. 12 - Of The Lamps Of The Mansions: The Ambassador's Plea — 17:43
13. 13 - His Credential Accepted: A Babel of Tongues — 17:56
14. 14 - With Eyes And Not Seeing: One Influence Wanes — 13:05
15. 15 - The Irk Of The Old Ties: The Magic Of Youth — 35:17
16. 16 - A Witless Alladin: The Gate To The World — 18:46
17. 17 - A Glimpse Through The Gateway: Hope Lightens The Eye — 18:50
18. 18 - Just Over The Border: A Hail And Farewell — 12:39
19. 19 - An Hour in Elfland: A Clamour Half Heard — 27:28
20. 20 - The Lure of The Spirit: The Flesh In Pursuit — 16:33
21. 21 - The Lure of the Spirit: The Flesh In Pursuit — 9:48
22. 22 - The Blaze Of The Tinder: Flesh Wars With The Flesh — 24:51
23. 23 - A Spirit In Travail: One Rung Put Behind — 23:14
24. 24 - Ashes of Tinder: A Face at the Window — 9:35

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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.