The Dream of Gerontius: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Dream of Gerontius, credited to John Henry Newman, 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 Dream of Gerontius by John Henry Newman. Read in English by LibriVox Volunteers. John Henry Newman was an English theologian, academic, writer and poet. Initially a Fellow of Oxford University, where he helped to found the Evangelical Oxford Movement, he later converted to Roman Catholicism and became a Cardinal. The Dream of Gerontius follows the journey of a man through death and purgatory to the sight of God. It has been described as a metrical meditation on death. It is more than that; it is the realization by means of a loving heart and a poetic imagination of the state of a just soul after death,—Gerontius typifying not the soul of a particular person imagined by Cardinal Newman, but your soul, my soul, any soul which may be fortunate enough to satisfy the judging and merciful God. No poet has ever presented the condition of the soul, as made known by the theology of the Catholic Church, so forcibly and appealingly as Cardinal Newman. The Poem owes much of its imagery to Dante's Divine Comedy. It was adapted as a Choral Oratorio by Edward Elgar. (Summary by Alan Mapstone and the Editor) Cast List Gerontius: Larry Wilson Assistants: Alan Mapstone The Priest: Inkell Angel: ShrimpPhish Demons: ToddHW Choir of Angelicals: Alan Mapstone Angels of the Sacred Stair: Brian Fullen Angel of the Agony: Agnes Robert Behr Souls in Purgatory: Jon Hunter Narration: Alan Mapstone

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Dream of Gerontius
• Author credits: John Henry Newman
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 3
• Listed recording duration: 52:05

Catalogue topics

• drama
• poetry

Track guide

1. 00 - Introduction and Dramatis Personae — 2:21
2. 01 - Part 1 — 10:53
3. 02 - Part 2 — 38:51

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.