The Rainbow (Version 2): Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Rainbow (Version 2), credited to D. H. Lawrence, 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 Rainbow (Version 2) by D. H. Lawrence. Read in English by Tony Foster Briefly appearing in 1915, then banned and taken out of circulation for its adult treatment of sexuality, Lawrence's visionary novel The Rainbow attempts to situate the lives of three generations of the Brangwen family within the continuous social change marking the Victorian transformation of Britain. Farmer Tom and his Polish wife Lydia, whose peaceful rural existence re-enacts the potent myths of Genesis; artisan Will and the matriarch Anna, who go to live among the industrial and mining communities so rapidly sprung up around Nottingham; finally the restless Ursula who, moving to the city, seeks sexual and emotional fulfilment with the Polish-descended Skrebensky - the three couples are not merely illustrative of the changing times, but allow the author to study in depth the conflict between the outer 'social' selves of those individuals and what he curiously calls the 'inhuman' essential being, the 'is-ness' at the core of their psychical life. Lawrence evokes this dark, unconscious 'vital core' through a language of breathtaking poetic beauty; a rhythmic incantatory prose which listeners to this recording will find perfectly rendered by Tony Foster, in all its nuances. Like Paul Morel, the hero of the earlier Sons and Lovers, Ursula survives her losses to face a future of uncertain but radiant hope: "She saw in the rainbow the earth's new architecture, the old, brittle corruption of houses and factories swept away, the world built up in a living fabric of Truth, fitting to the over-arching heaven." (Summary by Martin Geeson)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Rainbow (Version 2)
• Author credits: D. H. Lawrence
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 28
• Listed recording duration: 19:27:41

Catalogue topics

• relationships
• family saga
• historical saga
• sexual desire

Opening tracks: first 24 of 28

1. 01 - CHAPTER I Part 1 - HOW TOM BRANGWEN MARRIED A POLISH LADY — 50:36
2. 02 - CHAPTER I Part 2 - HOW TOM BRANGWEN MARRIED A POLISH LADY — 50:18
3. 03 - CHAPTER II Part 1 - THEY LIVE AT THE MARSH — 38:01
4. 04 - CHAPTER II Part 2 - THEY LIVE AT THE MARSH — 39:02
5. 05 - CHAPTER III - CHILDHOOD OF ANNA LENSKY — 35:22
6. 06 - CHAPTER IV Part 1 - GIRLHOOD OF ANNE BRANGWEN — 43:24
7. 07 - CHAPTER IV Part 2 - GIRLHOOD OF ANNE BRANGWEN — 42:14
8. 08 - CHAPTER V - WEDDING AT THE MARSH — 23:46
9. 09 - CHAPTER VI Part 1 ANNA VICTRIX — 44:01
10. 10 - CHAPTER VI Part 2 - ANNA VICTRIX — 41:33
11. 11 - CHAPTER VI Part 3 - ANNA VICTRIX — 42:21
12. 12 - CHAPTER VII - THE CATHEDRAL — 35:16
13. 13 - CHAPTER VIII Part 1 - THE CHILD — 34:47
14. 14 - CHAPTER VIII Part 2 - THE CHILD — 34:49
15. 15 - CHAPTER IX - THE MARSH AND THE FLOOD — 50:12
16. 16 - CHAPTER X - THE WIDENING CIRCLE — 51:39
17. 17 - CHAPTER XI Part 1 - FIRST LOVE — 39:20
18. 18 - CHAPTER XI Part 2 - FIRST LOVE — 39:46
19. 19 - CHAPTER XI Part 3 - FIRST LOVE — 38:40
20. 20 - CHAPTER XII - SHAME — 45:22
21. 21 - CHAPTER XIII Part 1 - THE MAN'S WORLD — 45:50
22. 22 - CHAPTER XIII Part 2 - THE MAN'S WORLD — 47:04
23. 23 - CHAPTER XIII Part 3 - THE MAN'S WORLD — 46:22
24. 24 - CHAPTER XIV - THE WIDENING CIRCLE - — 35:15

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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.