The Purple Cloud: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Purple Cloud, credited to Matthew Phipps Shiel, 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 Purple Cloud, by Matthew Phipps Shiel. The story, a recording of a medium's meditation over the future writing of the text, details the narrator's (Adam Jeffson's) expedition to the North Pole during the 20th century on board the Boreal. Jeffson's fiancée, the Countess Clodagh, poisons her own cousin in order to secure a place on the ship for Jeffson, because the expedition was known to be one of the best ever planned. A millionaire, who died some years previously, had ordered in his will that he would pay 175,000,000 dollars to the first person standing at the North Pole. Before Jeffson leaves, he hears a sermon by a Scottish priest named Mackay, speaking against Polar research, calling the failure of all previous expeditions the will of God, and prophesying a terrible fate for those who attempt to go against God's will in this. The narrator at the same time remembers his meeting with a man who claimed that the universe is a place of strife between vague "powers", "The White" and "The Black", for dominance. Throughout the events of the polar journey, the narrator gradually discovers that his course has been, for many years, guided by these forces, all the way up to the point where he reaches the pole first. He finds a huge, clear lake of spinning water with a rock island inlaid with inscriptions. (Summary by Wikipedia)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Purple Cloud
• Author credits: Matthew Phipps Shiel
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 33
• Listed recording duration: 11:51:39

Catalogue topics

• adventure
• fiction

Opening tracks: first 24 of 33

1. 00 - Section 00 — 17:48
2. 01 - Section 01 — 18:49
3. 02 - Section 02 — 20:36
4. 03 - Section 03 — 26:20
5. 04 - Section 04 — 13:22
6. 05 - Section 05 — 14:52
7. 06 - Section 06 — 29:05
8. 07 - Section 07 — 19:23
9. 08 - Section 08 — 14:46
10. 09 - Section 09 — 10:47
11. 10 - Section 10 — 24:51
12. 11 - Section 11 — 22:19
13. 12 - Section 12 — 22:53
14. 13 - Section 13 — 28:18
15. 14 - Section 14 — 12:28
16. 15 - Section 15 — 29:51
17. 16 - Section 16 — 25:36
18. 17 - Section 17 — 32:19
19. 18 - Section 18 — 29:00
20. 19 - Section 19 — 21:19
21. 20 - Section 20 — 30:10
22. 21 - Section 21 — 24:18
23. 22 - Section 22 — 27:32
24. 23 - Section 23 — 26:24

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.