The Festive Wreath: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Festive Wreath, credited to Various, 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 Festive Wreath by Various. Read in English by Phil Benson The Festive Wreath, edited by John Bolton Rogerson, and subtitled 'A Collection of Contributions Read at a Literary Meeting Held in Manchester, March 24th 1842 at the Sun Inn Long Millgate' was the first published collection of work by Lancashire Poets. Local poets had been gathering at the Sun Inn since 1840 around John Critchley Prince who was a regular drinker there. Spotting a business opportunity, landlord William Earnshaw, renamed the inn 'Poets Corner' and held more formal events, including the 'Festival of Poetry' with 40 poets iand a journalist from the Manchester Guardian in attendance, that led to the publication of the Festive Wreath. The Sun Inn Group, as it became known, consisted of a mixture of working class and wealthier poets, of whom the wealthiest was the so-called 'Bard of Colour', Richard Rose, a plantation owner from the Carribbean. It was a male-dominated group and meetings were often rowdy with singing and much drinking - the four female poets whose contributions appear in the collection did not attend the festival. The contents of the collection tend toward a classical style and several were written specially for the event. The most interesting contribution is, perhaps, Alexander Wilson's 'The Poet's Corner', designed as a drinking song to be performed as an interlude in the proceedings, which referenced many of those of who were present on the day. - Summary by Phil Benson

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Festive Wreath
• Author credits: Various
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 21
• Listed recording duration: 1:24:28

Catalogue topics

• Lancashire
• Manchester

Track guide

1. 00 - Preface, by John Bolton Rogerson — 10:17
2. 01 - The Poet's Welcome, by John Critchley Prince — 3:20
3. 02 - A Poetical Replication, by George Richardson — 7:29
4. 03 - Love's Faith, by Isabella Varley — 1:27
5. 04 - The Minstrel's Lot, by John Bolton Rogerson — 5:37
6. 05 - Children Sleeping, by E. S. Craven Green — 1:37
7. 06 - O Faded Leaf, by Robert Story — 1:17
8. 07 - A Dirge to the Memory of William Grant, Esq., the Philanthropist, by Benjamin Stott — 4:32
9. 08 - Sonnet - The Poets, by Robert Rose — 1:20
10. 09 - The Lover of Nature's Farewell, by Mrs. Caulton — 3:01
11. 10 - Stanzas, by Elijah Ridings — 2:50
12. 11 - To My Daughter, by John Ball — 2:06
13. 12 - The Flight of a Century, by William Gaspey — 5:57
14. 13 - The Poet's Corner, by Alexander Wilson — 9:14
15. 14 - Early Haunts Visited, by Richard Wright Proctor — 2:18
16. 15 - Who Are the Living of the Earth?, by John Mills — 5:47
17. 16 - Enigma, by William Taylor — 3:08
18. 17 - To Mary Sleeping, by Thomas Arkell Tidmarsh — 2:12
19. 18 - Gwynant, or 'The Vale of Waters', a Cambrian Scene, by John Scholes — 5:05
20. 19 - Sharon's Rose, by Eliza Battye — 1:53
21. 20 - Fame, Freedom, and Friendship, by Robert Rose — 4:01

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.