The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew, King of the Beggars: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew, King of the Beggars, credited to Bampfylde Moore Carew; Robert Goadby, 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 Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew, King of the Beggars by Bampfylde Moore Carew and Robert Goadby. Read in English by Grant Hurlock. The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew recounts the wide-ranging exploits of a real-life rogue – a wily professional mendicant who roams 18th-century England extracting charity from merchants, clergyman, and members of the landed gentry alike, employing in his craft an ingenious variety of deceptions and disguises put on for the purpose. Often he impersonates a shipwreck-surviving seaman and uses his wide knowledge of foreign parts and personages to achieve plausibility. Or he might appear on a doorstep as a destitute woman in widow's weeds, toting borrowed babes to enhance the effect. In the course of his psychological experiments in the science of inducing charity, Bampfylde Moore Carew takes great delight in touching the same mark more than once, back to back, offering up a different identity each time he scores. Sometimes, after the fact, he unmasks to his prey, and a drinking-party ensues. Twice, though, he is apprehended and transported to colonial America to be sold into slavery. During his first American sojourn, he lives among peaceful Indians before wangling his way back to England, feigning smallpox en route to avoid being pressed into military service. On another occasion, though, he is press-ganged onto a warship bound up the Baltic but, as always, uses his wits to make his way back to his beloved wife and daughter in England. This book opens a panoramic window onto the day-to-day problems and social practices of those attempting to survive the precarious first half of the 18th century. Appended to the tale is A Dictionary of the Cant Language, listing the colorful, semisecret argot used by mendicants to, among other things, describe targets of opportunity while evading comprehension by overhearing ears. A sort of urban dictionary of its day, it includes such surprising entries as "flaybottomist - a schoolmaster," "lousetrap - a comb" and "tip the velvet - to tongue a woman." (Summary by Grant Hurlock)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew, King of the Beggars
• Author credits: Bampfylde Moore Carew; Robert Goadby
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 23
• Listed recording duration: 7:31:28

Catalogue topics

• autobiography
• Indians
• picaresque
• Newfoundland
• colonial america
• Bonnie Prince Charlie
• gypsies
• roguery

Track guide

1. 01 - Chapter 1 — 17:31
2. 02 - Chapter 2 — 16:02
3. 03 - Chapter 3 — 12:50
4. 04 - Chapter 4 — 12:57
5. 05 - Chapter 5 — 11:25
6. 06 - Chapter 6 — 14:13
7. 07 - Chapter 7 — 18:48
8. 08 - Chapter 8 — 10:40
9. 09 - Chapter 9 — 23:56
10. 10 - Chapter 10 — 29:46
11. 11 - Chapter 11 — 16:50
12. 12 - Chapter 12 — 26:05
13. 13 - Chapter 13 — 19:39
14. 14 - Chapter 14 — 27:22
15. 15 - Chapter 15 — 23:24
16. 16 - Chapter 16 — 19:57
17. 17 - Chapter 17 — 15:13
18. 18 - Chapter 18 — 8:55
19. 19 - Chapter 19 — 23:56
20. 20 - Chapter 20 — 24:05
21. 21 - Chapter 21 — 15:24
22. 22 - Chapter 22 — 32:18
23. 23 - Chapter 23 - A Dictionary of the Cant Language — 30:12

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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.