The Diary of a Provincial Lady: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Diary of a Provincial Lady, credited to E. M. Delafield, 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 The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield. Read in English by Cori Samuel. “Notice, and am gratified by, large clump of crocuses near the front gate. Should like to make whimsical and charming reference to these and try to fancy myself as ‘Elizabeth of the German Garden’, but am interrupted by Cook, saying that the Fish is here, but he’s only bought cod and haddock, and the haddock doesn’t smell any too fresh, so what about cod? Have often noticed that Life is like that.” First published in 1930, this charming, funny book is a warm portrait of a middle-class English family and their village life. Our heroine recounts the mundane delights and disasters of her household, dealing with constant money worries, the challenges of finding & keeping a really good parlourmaid, and how best to retain grace towards her fellow humans in the face of their astonishing range of foibles. It’s also a wonderfully genuine description of a marriage, with all the little ups and downs of rubbing along with the same person for so many years. This recording was originally published on Legamus.eu and was later released on Librivox when US copyright permitted. - Summary by Cori Samuel

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Diary of a Provincial Lady
• Author credits: E. M. Delafield
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 12
• Listed recording duration: 5:47:54

Catalogue topics

• women
• housekeeping
• diary
• england
• family
• 1920s
• village life
• home

Track guide

1. 01 - Section 01 — 27:42
2. 02 - Section 02 — 31:39
3. 03 - Section 03 — 27:15
4. 04 - Section 04 — 26:13
5. 05 - Section 05 — 28:15
6. 06 - Section 06 — 25:49
7. 07 - Section 07 — 27:33
8. 08 - Section 08 — 27:14
9. 09 - Section 09 — 31:32
10. 10 - Section 10 — 30:04
11. 11 - Section 11 — 31:24
12. 12 - Section 12 — 33:14

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.