The Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise, credited to Peter Abelard, 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 Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise, by Peter Abelard and Heloise. Heloise was a strong-willed and gifted woman who was fluent in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and came from a lower social standing than Abelard. At age 19, and living under her uncle Fulbert's roof, Heloise fell in love with Abelard, who she was studying under. Not only did they have a clandestine affair of a sexual nature, they had a child, Astrolabe, out of wedlock. Discovered by the Fulbert (who was a Church official), Abelard was assaulted by a hired thug and castrated, and Heloise entered a convent. Abelard was exiled to Brittany, where he lived as monk. Eventually Heloise became abbess of the Oratory of the Paraclete, an abbey which Abelard had founded. It was at this time that they exchanged their famous letters, presented in this book. The letters, originally written in Latin, are passionate both in the remembrance of lost love, and the attempt to reconcile that love with their respective monastic duty to remain chaste. The tension between these two poles generates a huge amount of emotional electricity. (Summary by J. B. Hare)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise
• Author credits: Peter Abelard
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 9
• Listed recording duration: 3:36:07

Catalogue topics

• romance
• religion
• letters
• abelard
• heloise

Track guide

1. 0 - Introduction — 4:19
2. 1 - Letter 1: Abelard to Philintus — 34:52
3. 2 - Letter 2: Heloise to Abelard — 45:25
4. 3 - Letter 3: Abelard to Heloise — 32:42
5. 4 - Letter 4: Heloise to Abelard — 27:17
6. 5 - Letter 5: Heloise to Abelard — 26:28
7. 6 - Letter 6: Abelard to Heloise — 20:38
8. 7 - Appendix 1 — 22:40
9. 8 - Appendix 2 — 1:50

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.