The Joyful Wisdom: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Joyful Wisdom, credited to Friedrich Nietzsche, 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 Joyful Wisdom, by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Oscar Levy. Read by TimSC. "The Joyful Wisdom," written in 1882, just before "Zarathustra," is rightly judged to be one of Nietzsche's best books. Here the essentially grave and masculine face of the poet-philosopher is seen to light up and suddenly break into a delightful smile. The warmth and kindness that beam from his features will astonish those hasty psychologists who have never divined that behind the destroyer is the creator, and behind the blasphemer the lover of life. In the retrospective valuation of his work which appears in "Ecce Homo" the author himself observes with truth that the fourth book, "Sanctus Januarius," deserves especial attention: "The whole book is a gift from the Saint, and the introductory verses express my gratitude for the most wonderful month of January that I have ever spent." Book fifth "We Fearless Ones," the Appendix "Songs of Prince Free-as-a-Bird," and the Preface, were added to the second edition in 1887. (Summary by Dr Oscar Levy)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Joyful Wisdom
• Author credits: Friedrich Nietzsche
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 14
• Listed recording duration: 12:38:46

Catalogue topics

• philosophy
• Nietzsche

Track guide

1. 00 - Editorial Note and Preface — 24:56
2. 01 - Jest, Ruse and Revenge: A Prelude in Rhyme — 24:25
3. 02 - Book First, Part 1 — 1:06:48
4. 03 - Book First, Part 2 — 1:02:13
5. 04 - Book Second, Part 1 — 58:30
6. 05 - Book Second, Part 2 — 54:20
7. 06 - Book Third, Part 1 — 58:38
8. 07 - Book Third, Part 2 — 58:11
9. 08 - Book Fourth: Sanctus Januarius, part 1 — 1:10:34
10. 09 - Book Fourth: Sanctus Januarius, part 2 — 1:06:16
11. 10 - Book Fifth: We Fearless Ones, part 1 — 1:06:19
12. 11 - Book Fifth: We Fearless Ones, part 2 — 1:09:37
13. 12 - Book Fifth: We Fearless Ones, part 3 — 56:33
14. 13 - Appendix: Songs of Prince Free-as-a-Bird — 21:41

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.