The Painted Veil: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Painted Veil, credited to W. Somerset Maugham, 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 Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham. Read in English by Bob R . This Maugham classic is set in England and Hong Kong and in a cholera --ridden Chinese village in the 1920's. A committed, principled, epidemiologist, Dr. Fane, falls in love with the beautiful, but vain and foolish, Kitty Garstin. She agrees to marry him only because she wishes to beat her sister to the altar. She soon commits adultery with a British official in Hong Kong, where they have relocated. Dr. Fane decides that she must accompany him to a small village, deep within China, where cholera is rampant; otherwise, he will reveal the betrayal, with grave consequences for all. It appears to be a suicide mission. The story is one of love, of a search for meaning of life, of forgiveness, and of personal growth and change. The inner thoughts of the several characters--especially Kitty--are thoroughly painted by Maugham. The title presumably refers to the veil of illusion that often hides the truth we feel about ourselves. We will not spoil for the reader the surprises that make this a compelling novel. (Summary by Bob Rollins)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Painted Veil
• Author credits: W. Somerset Maugham
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 15
• Listed recording duration: 8:18:37

Catalogue topics

• china
• family strife
• psychological fiction

Track guide

1. 00 - Sec 00 — 8:54
2. 01 - Sec 01 — 23:00
3. 02 - Sec 02 — 30:40
4. 03 - Sec 03 — 35:05
5. 04 - Sec 04 — 36:14
6. 05 - Sec 05 — 30:07
7. 06 - Sec 06 — 34:50
8. 07 - Sec 07 — 31:43
9. 08 - Sec 08 — 43:32
10. 09 - Sec 09 — 32:36
11. 10 - Sec 10 — 38:48
12. 11 - Sec 11 — 42:01
13. 12 - Sec 12 — 39:10
14. 13 - Sec 13 — 32:39
15. 14 - Sec 14 — 39:18

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.