Audiobook · read by volunteers
À Child's Garden of Verses
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
Read by Arctura · 4 chapters · 1 h 15
About the book
A child lies in bed in the daytime, ill, and plays with a land of counterpane. Another looks out of a window as the lamplighter goes by. Others swing, sail paper boats, see shadows on the wall, and wonder about the farthest places. A Child’s Garden of Verses captures the world as children see it, with its games, fears and daydreams.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s poems are short, rhythmic and easy to love. Some are playful and others quietly moving, and many have been known by heart for generations. They describe a world seen from low to the ground, full of wonder.
This collection is divided into four parts and lasts about an hour and a quarter. A natural choice for bedtime, and a pleasure for adults who remember what it was like to be small.
Introduction
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was a Scottish writer best known for the adventure novel Treasure Island and the novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He was a frail man who spent much of his life seeking a climate that suited his health, and he travelled widely, eventually settling in Samoa, where he died. A Child’s Garden of Verses, published in 1885, was his only major collection of poems for children.
The poems are written in a deceptively simple style, from the point of view of a child, and draw on Stevenson’s own memories of his sickly childhood in Edinburgh. They deal with ordinary experiences such as being put to bed while it is still light, playing in the garden, travelling in imagination, and the games children invent. Titles such as “The Swing”, “My Shadow” and “Where Go the Boats?” are among the most familiar poems in English.
The collection was an immediate success and has remained in print since. Its appeal lies in its musical rhythms and in its respect for a child’s imagination. It treats childhood as a serious world of its own, rather than a preparation for adulthood, which was a fresh approach at the time.
This recording is divided into four parts and runs for about an hour and a quarter, read by a LibriVox volunteer. It is ideal for reading aloud to young children, for sleepy evenings, and for anyone who enjoys verse that sings.
Public domain
Robert Louis Stevenson died in 1894: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text