The Ring and the Book: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Ring and the Book, credited to Robert Browning, 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 Ring and the Book by Robert Browning. Read in English by Tony Oliva "Better translate--"A Roman murder-case: "Position of the entire criminal cause "Of Guido Franceschini, nobleman, "With certain Four the cutthroats in his pay, "Tried, all five, and found guilty and put to death "By heading or hanging as befitted ranks, "At Rome on February Twenty-Two, "Since our salvation Sixteen Ninety Eight: "Wherein it is disputed if, and when, "Husbands may kill adulterous wives, yet 'scape 'The customary forfeit.'" (Excerpt from first chapter of The Ring and the Book.) Note from reader: The main text I have read from follows the first edition; but there are some words or lines that do not make sense, either through copying mistakes or because they are difficult if not impossible to make sense of in the first edition. In such cases, I have relied upon an alternate text, found at archive.org and also in the public domain, that contains the wording of the later editions. --Tony Oliva

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Ring and the Book
• Author credits: Robert Browning
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 166
• Listed recording duration: 26:07:48

Catalogue topics

• dramatic monologue
• poetic monologue
• 1698 italian murder trial

Opening tracks: first 24 of 166

1. 001 - Chapter 1 - The Ring and the Book: Do you see this ring? — 9:31
2. 002 - Chapter 1. Word for word, So ran the title-page — 7:32
3. 003 - Chapter 1. So was the trial at end, do you suppose? — 11:47
4. 004 - Chapter 1. Well, British Public, ye who like me not, — 19:56
5. 005 - Chapter 1. This was it from, my fancy with those facts, — 7:45
6. 006 - Chapter 1. Enough of me! — 9:41
7. 007 - Chapter 1. Then, yet another day let come and go, — 7:56
8. 008 - Chapter 1. Also hear Caponsacchi who comes next, — 6:45
9. 009 - Chapter 1. Then, since a Trial ensued, a touch o' the same — 12:26
10. 010 - Chapter 1. Then must speak Guido yet a second time, — 8:10
11. 011 - Chapter 1. Such, British Public, ye who like me not, — 3:05
12. 012 - Chapter 2 - Half-Rome: What, you, Sir, come too? (Just the man I'd meet.) — 5:48
13. 013 - Chapter 2. From dawn till now that it is growing dusk, — 7:01
14. 014 - Chapter 2. These wretched Comparini were once gay — 7:31
15. 015 - Chapter 2. He waited and learned waiting, thirty years; — 8:09
16. 016 - Chapter 2. They went to Arezzo,--Pietro and his spouse, — 6:40
17. 017 - Chapter 2. I see the comment ready on your lip, — 6:25
18. 018 - Chapter 2. This makes the first act of the farce — 9:23
19. 019 - Chapter 2. Leave it thus, and now revert — 8:42
20. 020 - Chapter 2. So it went on and on till--who was right? — 6:32
21. 021 - Chapter 2. Sir, what's the sequel? — 7:13
22. 022 - Chapter 2. Therefore to Rome with the clear case — 10:07
23. 023 - Chapter 2. The Canon Caponsacchi, then, was sent — 10:57
24. 024 - Chapter 2. Come, here's the last drop does its worst to wound, — 7:23

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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.