The Village and The Library: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Village and The Library, credited to George Crabbe, 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 Village and The Library by George Crabbe. Read in English by David Wales The Village is Crabbe’s corrective to the rosy-tinted view of English village and rural working class life. He was a stark realist, as a priest and surgeon having been privy to so much of actual, rather than ideal, life. The Library is his appreciation of the value of books and literature. George Crabbe (1754 – 1832) was an English poet, surgeon, and clergyman. He is best known for his early use of the realistic narrative form and his descriptions of middle and working-class life and people. Lord Byron described him as "nature's sternest painter, yet the best." Crabbe's poetry was predominantly in the form of heroic couplets, and has been described as unsentimental in its depiction of provincial life and society. Though his poetry has fallen out of favor, he was greatly appreciated by Wordsworth, Scott, Byron, Coleridge, and others - Summary by David Wales

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Village and The Library
• Author credits: George Crabbe
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 4
• Listed recording duration: 1:21:12

Catalogue topics

• Romanticism
• realism
• narrative poetry

Track guide

1. 01 - The Village, Book 1 — 22:41
2. 02 - The Village, Book 2 — 13:59
3. 03 - The Library, Part 1 — 27:31
4. 04 - The Library, Part 2 — 17:01

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.