The First Book of Urizen: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The First Book of Urizen, credited to William Blake, 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 First Book of Urizen, by William Blake. The Book of Urizen is one of the major prophetic books of the English poet William Blake, illustrated by Blake's own plates. It was originally published as The First Book of Urizen in 1794. Later editions dropped the word "first". The book takes its name from the character Urizen in Blake's mythology, who represents alienated reason as the source of oppression. The book describes Urizen as the "primeaval priest", and describes how he became separated from the other Eternals to create his own alienated and enslaving realm of religious dogma. Los and Enitharmon create a space within Urizen's fallen universe to give birth to their son Orc, the spirit of revolution and freedom. In form the book is a parody of the Book of Genesis, with Blake's Urizen being more similar to the demiurge of the Gnostics than a benevolent creator. (Summary from Wikipedia)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The First Book of Urizen
• Author credits: William Blake
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 2
• Listed recording duration: 35:52

Catalogue topics

• mythology
• prophecy

Track guide

1. 1 - Part One — 20:04
2. 2 - Part Two — 15:48

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.