The Grand Inquisitor (dramatic reading): Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Grand Inquisitor (dramatic reading), credited to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 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 Grand Inquisitor, from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. The Grand Inquisitor is a parable told by Ivan to Alyosha in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880). Ivan and Alyosha are brothers; Ivan questions the possibility of a personal, benevolent God and Alyosha is a novice monk. The Grand Inquisitor is an important part of the novel and one of the best-known passages in modern literature because of its ideas about human nature and freedom, and because of its fundamental ambiguity. In the tale, Christ comes back to earth in Seville at the time of the Inquisition. He performs a number of miracles (echoing miracles from the Gospels). The people recognize him and adore him, but he is arrested by Inquisition leaders and sentenced to be burnt to death the next day. The Grand Inquisitor visits him in his cell to tell him that the Church no longer needs him. The main portion of the text is the Inquisitor explaining to Jesus why his return would interfere with the mission of the church. (Summary by Wikipedia) Cast Narrator: Ruth Golding Ivan Karamazov: om123 Aloysha Karamazov: Martin Geeson The Grand Inquisitor: Denny Sayers Audio edited by Todd

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Grand Inquisitor (dramatic reading)
• Author credits: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 3
• Listed recording duration: 1:17:07

Catalogue topics

• audio
• dostoyevsky
• karamazov

Track guide

1. 1 - Part 1 — 18:03
2. 2 - Part 2 — 29:52
3. 3 - Part 3 — 29:12

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.