The Fiend's Delight: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Fiend's Delight, credited to Ambrose Bierce, 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 Fiend's Delight by Ambrose Bierce. Read in English by April6090 This book, the fiend’s delight, was published in 1873, during the lifetime of author Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1914, pseudonym Dod Grile. It is a collection of short stories which cover many subjects. Dependant upon the reader the stories may seem callous, entertaining or some of the stories even just weird. The author has been known to have a penchant for being macabre as some of his works have displayed. Ambrose Bierce served in the Civil War so he did have personal experience with having seen just how horrid some lives were. He also had a family: a wife whom he divorced in 1904 and 3 children, 2 sons and a daughter. Difficult times followed for him as the sons died before Ambrose died, with his ex wife dying 1 year after their divorce. Ambrose himself was known to have had lifelong asthma & brain injuries from the war which caused him to faint & become irritable. His daughter did live 65 years, dying in 1940. She spent time searching for her father, whom she did not think was dead. Possibly his family is why some of his writings were not so macabre? Unfortunately that answer is not known. Leaving to visit his civil war grounds had him traveling into Mexico were there was revolution in 1913. There he joined Pancho Villa’s army as an observer where he disappeared. Many theories existed as to how his disappearance happened, most of which were unreliable. It was determined his final fate was unknown & referred to as a mystery. April Reynolds

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Fiend's Delight
• Author credits: Ambrose Bierce
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 57
• Listed recording duration: 2:25:32

Opening tracks: first 24 of 57

1. 01 - Preface — 1:46
2. 02 - Some Fiction; One More Unfortunate — 2:46
3. 03 - Some Fiction; The Strong Young Man of Colusa — 2:22
4. 04 - Some Fiction;The Glad New Year — 2:00
5. 05 - Some Fiction; The Late Dowling, Senior — 5:24
6. 06 - Some Fiction; “Love’s Labour Lost” — 3:57
7. 07 - Some Fiction; A Comforter — 2:08
8. 08 - Some Fiction; Little Isaac — 2:30
9. 09 - Some Fiction; the Heels of Her — 2:26
10. 10 - Some Fiction; A Tale of Two Feet — 1:50
11. 11 - Some Fiction; The Scolliver Pig — 3:30
12. 12 - Some Fiction; Mr. Hunker's Mourner — 2:18
13. 13 - Some Fiction; A Bit of Chivalry — 3:08
14. 14 - Some Fiction; The Head of the Family — 2:00
15. 15 - Some Fiction; Deathbed Repentance — 2:34
16. 16 - Some Fiction; The New Church that was not Built — 3:23
17. 17 - Some Fiction; A Tale of the Great Quake — 2:05
18. 18 - Some Fiction; Johnny — 1:46
19. 19 - Some Fiction; The Child's Provider — 1:52
20. 20 - Some Fiction; Boys who Began Wrong — 1:50
21. 21 - Some Fiction; A Kansas Incident — 1:07
22. 22 - Some Fiction; Mr. Grile's Girl — 2:29
23. 23 - Some Fiction; His Railway — 1:54
24. 24 - Some Fiction; Mr. Gish Makes a Present — 1:59

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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.