The Growth of Love: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Growth of Love, credited to Robert Bridges, 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 Growth of Love by Robert Bridges. Read in English by Algy Pug Robert Bridges, who appointed Poet Laureate in 1913, published three versions of his sonnet sequence, The Growth of Love: 1876 - 24 sonnets 1889 - 79 sonnets 1898 - 69 sonnets The second edition, which is the subject of this recording, was re-published in 1894, with an extensive introduction from another celebrated poet, Lionel Johnson. The title of the work is a little misleading, as it suggests a process of development, a deepening understanding, by which one arrives at a more comprehensive appreciation of the mysterious entity which we call love. In fact, Bridge's journey is a meandering, rather than a goal-oriented path. Each sonnet is a window through which the poet gazes at one of the multifarious aspects of a quintessential numinosity which will always escape definition. Bridge's approach is one of gentle and courteous appreciation, observational rather than meditative, and almost completely free from the feeling of striving for salvation or apotheosis. (Summary by Algy Pug)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Growth of Love
• Author credits: Robert Bridges
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 6
• Listed recording duration: 1:48:39

Catalogue topics

• poetry
• victorian
• bridges
• sonnet

Track guide

1. 00 - Introduction by Lionel Johnson — 38:24
2. 01 - Sonnets 1 - 15 — 12:54
3. 02 - Sonnets 16 - 30 — 13:10
4. 03 - Sonnets 31 - 45 — 13:33
5. 04 - Sonnets 46 - 60 — 13:09
6. 05 - Sonnets 61 - 79 — 17:32

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.